Back Home
by Warringer
Summary: A TenchiBabylon 5RyanverseSailor Moon xover. Don't ask me how I got this idea, I just got it... For some fluff on this special xover universe, visit my homepage. Switched to M because of realistic violence.
1. Chapter 1

Back Home

Warringer

Prolog

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"It is time," he heard the soft voice in the back of his head," The circle closes."

"Do you always have to say that? Hearing it from a Vorlon is irritating enough."

"You seem to forget who I am."

He sighed.

"Well, It is too easy to forget it most of the time."

"If you say so..."

He sighed and focused his glance onto the large view screen in the front of the Command Center.

"All capacitators are charged," the voice said again, this time through the speakers of the mostly empty Command Center," Ready for dimensional jump."

"Execute jump," he said and leaned back in his seat.

This would bring him back home. Hopefully.

"Executing Dimensional Jump Sequence."

Deep within the bowls of the majestic ship the large capacitators released their charge focusing it through transformers and into the Jumo Engine. Minute amounts of artificial Quantum 40 mixed with a substance called Tyrelium were injected into the main chamber of the Engine and the charge of the capacitators reached the chamber. The large amounts of energy were transformed yet again and released through special emitters, tearing at the wall that separated normal space, hyper space and the inter universal medium, called Third Space.

A dark blue funnel opened directly in front of the majestic ship and it accelerated into it. It seemed to get longer and than disappeared inside the funnel. With a flash of light the funnel closed.

Several thousand kilometers away a small Vorlon bioship dropped is cloak and swung around. Its passenger looked at the place where the other ship just disappeared.

"Your circle here has ended, but another has just started."

The Kosh seemed to sigh as he turned around and looked at the hologram showing a growing jump point.

"I wish you luck, Tenchi Masaki."

Just at that moment a dark skinned man appeared beside the Kosh.

"Yes, he will need all the luck he can get. Now we can't help him, can we Kosh."

"No."

With that the Vorlon bioship disappeared inside the jump point.


	2. Chapter 2

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 1

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Space was empty. Well, more or less so. The space around the star known as Proxima Centauri to the humans of Earth wasn't exactly empty. There was a small planet, more like a large planetoid, orbiting the small red sun. And this planetoid was orbited by a a very large space station. Okay, space station is a bit much, it was more of a big conglomerate of ship hulls welded and bolted together. Most of these ship hulls looked like they were ready to fall apart and more than one was covered with craters of micrometeorites, molten lines of old weapon wounds, rust or simply space dust.

Novak Station wasn't a place where you wanted to live, but it was the perfect spot for people who wanted to lay low, refugees of interstellar wars, fugitives from totalitarian regimes or simply people the tides of space had washed ashore at this god forsaken station near a system that was protected by the Juraians.

But the same things that made Novak Station attractive for refugees, fugitives and other people, also made the station a sore spot for more than one government of the galaxy. Jurai didn't give a damn about this little station and Galaxy Police had better thing to do, than protect the station.

Most of the time Novak Station was able to defend itself quite well. The gun-emplacements were placed everywhere on the surface of the Station. Most of them hidden in plain sight in the old turret mounts of the hulls that made up the Station. Some of the turrets were armed with Quantum I level weapons, while others were armed with Quantum II level weapons. There was also a single large shield generator located in one of the hulls, an old freighter that had been big and slow, but well defended with the shield.

But against three Doranian Cruisers even the defense of Novak Station would fail in time.

Doranian Cruisers were known throughout the Galaxy as the most powerful ships a Quantum I civilization could produce and field, before getting to a Quantum II level.

At this moment, Novak Station was loosing. The shield generator was more than three hundred years old, from a race in the lower Quantum II level and the strain of the staving shots from the Cruisers were more than enough to bring it down to its knees and letting it fail.

You see the Doranians were a feline species. And a feline species that was known to play with its enemies before bringing them down to their knees and ripping out their windpipe or according equipment.

And their will to play with their pray was shown here yet again. It was fun for them to dance out of the way of the Stations fire, let themselves be hit once or twice and than shoot that the Station to bring down its shield for a few percent.

Any observer would notice that the Doranians were slowly destroying the shield generator of the Station with the constant strain on it. It would need about half an hour to finally being destroyed, after a straining fight of more than three days, in which the inhabitants of the Station were slowly breaking mentally themselves. Of cause several people were already broken.

But this fight was about to end. And certainly not in the way the Doranians intended it to end.

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"How long?" Alister Baker asked and looked at the view screen that showed the attacking Doranian Cruisers.

"Half an hour, maybe even less," answered the molluskoid alien, Baker liked to call Scotty, because of his skill as technician.

Baker closed his eyes and sighed. Than he looked at a small photography that stood on his office desk. For a moment he thought that he would see the two humans on the picture in real life in front of his desk, but it was an illusion his stressed mind showed him. He continued to look at the photo.

"I'll be with you again," he whispered and a small tear escaped from his eye," After all these years..."

Unwanted by Baker, memories flooded back into his mind. Memories of him, his wife and his daughter being abducted by aliens, a race he later learned to know and fear as Vree. Memories of his wife and daughter dying by the hands of the Vree to 'research' human emotions. Memories of being rescued by the Galaxy Police, just to be released on some backwater planet somewhere out at the rim. Memories of doing everything he could to return home to Earth, just to strand at Novak Station. Just four light years away from home, but never able to see it again.

He didn't really know why he had become the Director of this station, but he knew that he was doing a good job at it. Maybe it was because he had been in logistics back than, when he still lived on Earth and worked in the Navy.

And now he would die. Die after twenty years of exile by the hands of overgrown cats with a cruel way of having fun. And just because they never left their pray flee from them. Just twenty Doranian dissident families that had fled the military government of their home. And the worse wart was that there had been fifteen Cruisers to begin with, but they had discovered the radio cloud of Earth and so the majority of the ships were en route to Earth and would reach Bakers home world in less than six hours.

Baker closed his eyes again and breathed in deep. It was amazing how clear he could think, just minutes away from his dead. He never seen things this clearly.

"Director!" someone yelled," The screen!"

Baker looked up and looked out of his office and into the Command Center of the Station, something that looked very much like the Command Center of the fictional Space Station Deep Space Nine, not that Baker had ever seen the series.

The large holographic screen at the fas side of the Command Center showed a piece of space, but a single white point was seen there, something that grew larger and stabilized in a big dark blue funnel

Baker stared at the screen.

"What in the name of..."

Something seemed to shoot out of the funnel that closed after a few moments. The camera paned at the object that had shot out of the funnel, focufocusing on a massive orange colored space ship that looked like a big squid.

Well, more or less. It looked like someone had crossed a brick with a squid. Four panels stuck out from the back of the ship and four tentacle like structures stuck out at the front. There was also a big rod coming from beneath the brick like main body of the large ship. Smaller turrets dotted the ships surface and the also ended in these four tentacle like extensions. There was also something Baker though to identify as missile pods.

"Holy shit..." he said breathlessly.

At one of the sides of the ship Baker saw something he thought he would never see again. The name of the ship, printed in Latin script.

Dark Knight

Data was printed on the screen and Bakers mouth went dry. That ship was more than two kilometers long. Larger than anything he had ever seen. Including that one Juraian Cruiser eighteen years ago.

"Incoming Message! Visual!"

The image of the large ship showed that the smaller turrets started to turn around, pointing at the Doranian Cruisers, while it got smaller and went into a corner of the screen. The main screen than showed the image of a Japanese or Juraian human in his mid forties/fourhundreds in a dark colored military uniform. Baker could read the Earthern rank markings on the shoulders and knew that they gave the man a rank of Commodore.

The man had strange violet eyes, black hair, a carefully groomed beard and the appearance of a man that trained regularly

"This is Commodore Tenchi Masaki of the Earth Alliance Battleship _Dark Knight_," the man said with a voice that seemed to be used to order someone around," to the attacking fleet. You will cease any hostile movements against the station."

The screen split and showed the frowning face of the Doranian Commander. The Doranian male had brown colored face and the scar going through his right eye gave him the appearance of a old and accompanied warrior.

"We will do as we please, Jurian."

Baker could see a slight twitch on the face of Commodore Masaki as he was called a Jurian.

"It is our right to attack and destroy that station for hiding traitors to the Protectorate! And I will destroy you if you chose to side with the traitors on the station."

Baker watched Commodore Masakis face growing darker.

"So be it," Masaki said and the connection was cut.

Backer swallowed hard as the _Dark Knight_ went back to the big screen. A small tactical display was inlayed into the large screen and Baker could see how easy the large battleship turned around to face the Doranian Cruisers. Sparks began to dance between the four large spines growing from the front of the ship, crossing in their center, while the large rod beneath started to light up.

The three Cruisers chose to open fire at the battleship first. The large main cannons of the nine hundred meter long cruisers fired, bolts of bright white energy lancing through space towards the large battleship.

But with the agility of a snub fighter the large ships danced out of the way of the beams, as if gravity chose to pull it out of the way in the last second. But two beams coming from one of the cruisers came too close for the battleship to get out of the way. One seemed to be bend away from the ship like by the hand of a giant, while the other slammed directly into the port side of the large battleship, cutting deep into the hull.

Baker swallowed. A glancing shot like that had punched through the shield of one of the defending ships of the Station and reduced it to a glowing heap of slack. And this ship just took the shot, even of it was damaged. He couldn't really imagine how thick the armor of that ship had to be that the deep cut didn't expose the sections beneath it to the vacuum.

Than the _Dark Knight_ returned fire. Lightning streaked from the crossing point of the sparks in the front of the ship towards one of the Cruisers, blowing right through the touch shields vaporising a good portion of its forward hull and most of the forward arc weapons. Following the lightning was a lance of white blue energy suddenly appearing in space, standing between the _Dark Knight_ and another Cruiser for one or two seconds. The shield of the Cruiser lit up like the sky at 4th of July, before collapsing.

As the lance of light disappeared it had molten its way straight through the cruiser leaving a perfect hole going from bow to stern. The Cruiser continued to float dead in space as the large battleship turned around to face the remaining cruiser.

The captain of the Cruiser had to be extremely brave, extremely stupid or both, because the Cruiser opened fire at the orange colored battleship again. Half of the shots went wide, others were bend away from the hull, while three slammed directly into the bow of the ship. Large chunks of the forward hull were vaporized, but not enough to have penetrated the hull of the battleship before it fired its lightning.

The lightning broke through the cruisers shields and destroyed more than just the forward hull. It nearly split the ship into half.

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Baker swallowed again as he left the small shuttle and stepped onto the deck of the large battleship that had defended his station. From up close it had looked even more impressive than it did on a screen. As the shuttle went into the ships internal docking bay, it had moved close to the surface and to Baker it had looked like the skin of a wale, like the ones in Sea World. He had also see the massive breaks in the organic looking armor and see it regenerate itself.

The only race he could remember to use such a technology were the Jurians and those were a Quantum 3 level technology. The Minbari the only other known Quantum 3 race were close to armor like the one of the Jurians. So Baker assumed that this ship had to be of a Quantum 3 level, somewhere between the Minbari and the Jurians. He would have thought the ship to be above the Jurians, but it lacked any form of shielding, relaying only on its armor.

If this armor was tough enough to survive high level Quantum 1 weapons, he would like to know how it faired against Quantum 2 weapons, like that of Galaxy Police or the Centauri.

And now he stood in the hangar bay of this huge Quantum 3 level battleship, belonging to an organization called Earth Alliance. Part of his mind wondered if this had anything to do with Earth and/or the United Nations. Or if it was a fraud of someone trying to use the name of Earth to get into Jurian protected area. Which brought him to the twelve Doranian Cruisers en route to Earth.

But most of his mind was just gawking at the huge hangar and the fact that the organic look carried over from the outside, blending perfectly with more mundane technology. In the background he could see about a dozen crafts that were looking like more streamlined version of a Space Shuttle, complete with the organic look, and several more dozen fighter craft. The fighter craft had an X shape with their thrusters located at the end of the X-branches and a fighter nose in the center. They also had this orange organic looking armor. And they all looked as if they sat there unused for quite some time.

The ground of the hangar was gunmetal gray in color and the landing spot of his shuttle was surrounded by yellow-black warning hachures. Having served on the carrier Nimitz for about a year before getting transferred to Arlington and the Pentagon, he could see that this hangar had to be designed by human, no, Earthern human engineers.

Other than that no one was present to greet him or his escort, three Narn, who had fled their home world because of the Centauri occupation, fifteen years ago and hadn't been able to return home when the Narn kicked the Centrauri of Narn twelve years ago.

The three Narn looked as nervous as he was and fiddled with their weapons of choice.

"Hello?" Baker asked out loud in English, his native language, opposed to Intercosmo the originally Jurian language," Someone there?"

Nothing happened for a few minutes and Baker and the Narn got just more nervous.

Finally about a minute after Baker had called out, an airlock opened and a woman stepped into the hangar. She was alone and looked Japanese, or Jurian. She was about five feet tall and clothed in a black leather outfit that left nothing to the imagination on her beautiful body. Her dark green hair and the red eyes just added to the exotic beauty. But she also radiated a danger that made Baker swallow again, while the three Narn leveled their weapons at her.

Baker knew the danger she radiated. He had felt it more than once when bounty hunters or assassins had come to the station. Combined with his experience he knew that she could be one of both. The fact that she wore a small pin with a Greek letter, a 'Psi'.

The woman smiled at Baker and he had to swallow again. Her glance went to the Narn for a few moments, intensely studying them. She raised her eyebrow at one of the Narn, who happened to be the leader of the small Narn enclave on the station, G'Kar. Than she looked back at Baker.

"Welcome aboard _Dark Knight_, Director Baker," she said.

Her voice sounded incredibly sexy and alluring, but dangerous at the same time.

"My name is Setsuna," she continued," I will bring you and your companions to Commodore Masaki."

"Uhm... yes..." Baker answered, the only thing he could say at that moment.

What else could he say? The _Dark Knight_ was enough to let everything else look small in comparison, it had destroyed three Doranian Cruisers outright, without any shield and still only had taken superficial damage that repaired itself. And this woman was another thing that made him nervous and feeling small. It was as if she just had to look at him to know his deepest secrets, something no one had been able to do to him until now.

The woman, Setsuna, smiled again and walked towards the airlock.

"Please follow me."

The airlock opened in front of Setsuna and she stepped through. Baker looked at the three Narn and than moved to follow her into the orange colored corridor behind it.

They walked through the corridors in silence and used an elevator once or twice. All the time Baker felt as if someone was watching them, as if the ship itself would watch them. There was also the fact that they didn't see anyone in this large ship. Baker had through that he would see members of the ships crew on their way to meet Masaki, but there was no one to see. In fact the whole ship looked as if it hadn't have a crew for a long time.

Other small details came to Baker. The whole interior of the ship he could see, light panels, signs and small computer screens looked as if designed by Earthern humans. In fact the small screens and signs were inscribed with Latin letters and written in English. Everything was looking as if Earth had build this ship, but he knew for a fact that no nation on Earth was capable of doing this.

Baker was deep in thought, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that this ships was obviously coming from Earth. The three Narn just grew more and more nervous.

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At the same time a 'minion' entered the large throne room of his Lord, a data crystal in his hand. He bowed before his Lord.

"My Lord, I bring news from one of our spies. We received it over a Silver Channel."

Said Lord was lounging in his throne, unlike most of his predecessors he had one leg slung over one of the armrests as he looked at his 'minion' in a very bored way.

"Don't tell me that the Jurians or the Minbari are up to something again..." he asked with a loud yawn.

The 'minion' twitched a bit and put the data crystal into a small slot. A holographic screen appeared in the throne room, displaying a very good view of a battle, staring with a blue glowing funnel appearing in space.

"This was recorded by our spy on a small space station near one of the Jurian Protected Systems. It is named Novak Station. A rather... filthy place. We managed to track one of the old Narn leaders to that place and proceeded to watch him."

The screen showed how Tenchi talked to the Doranians and their reaction, before switching back to an external view and a first class view of the battle. Not even twenty seconds after the Doranian Cruisers had opened fire, all three were destroyed and the large orange battleship had just taken superficial damage.

The Lord looked at his 'minion' as the video ended.

"Where is this 'Earth Alliance'? I have never heard of it. And of what technology level is that ship?"

The 'minion' closed his eyes for a moment.

"Earth is a small sub-Quantum 0 planet, at least we thought so until now. It is protected by the Jurian Protected Systems Pact. But it would seem that the Jurians don't follow their own pact and helped the system to develop this technology. The Intelligence Department has vied the video already and determined that that ship is of Quantum 3 level, somewhere between the Minbari and the Jurians."

The Lord narrowed his eyes and sat up in his throne.

"If that is true, this systems isn't protected by the Jurians anymore. It would be a great opportunity to secure a forward base and the Quantum 3 technology of that planet. It can't have that many ships for just one planet."

He smiled and seemed to look at someone beside him and confer with him silently, causing the 'minion' to shudder slightly.

"Send a fleet to secure the system."

The 'minion' bowed again.

"It shall be done, my Emperor. For the Republic."

With that the 'minion' left the room and the Emperor smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 2

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Commodore Tenchi Masaki looked at the main view screen of the empty bridge of _Dark Knight_. The bridge had been empty for the last five years, ever since the old Warlock had merged with the wreck of an old Vorlon fighter found at an old battlefield from the Shadow War when Shadows and Vorlons had fought each other. Only Setsuna and he had ever been on this ship since than. All other humans were feeling like they were in a horror movie. But to him and Setsuna _Dark Knight_ had a more soothing feel to it.

His thoughts went to Setsuna. She was an ex member of Psi Corps and a Psi Cop. She had been a P-12 and something like James Bond of old. Infiltrating, sabotaging, assassinating and all that stuff. She had been good at it and combined with her slight precognition ability she had survived everything thrown at her.

But than Psi Corps had been greedy. They used chemicals and biogenetic engineering to make her 'better'. It had changed her forever. She shot up to being a P-16, her precognition was enough to let her see a minute into the future and she had even gotten a slight telekinetic ability. But that had nearly driven her insane. She had seen the thoughts of her superiors, who saw her a thing to use.

Tenchi didn't know over how much places she had went, but he and _Dark Knight _had found her Aurora Starfury floating near Babylon 5 and rescued her. _Dark Knight_ had sensed her problems and helped her. But that help had come with a price tag. Setsuna had to remain near _Dark Knight_, or she would go insane in less than three weeks. She could live two week without showing any signs of going insane, but than she would grow more and more sociopathic and eventually would snap. That was something no one wanted.

Tenchi continued to look at the large view screen and a small yellow colored dot that was zoomed in as far as possible. When he had dealt with Baker he would finally get back home. Idly he wondered how much time went by here.

"I would say about a month maximum," _Dark Knight_ said into his mind.

Tenchi raised an eyebrow at his ships comment.

"A month?"

"Well, we are near Proxima, even if this system is slightly different to the system we know. But the distance between Proxima and Sol remained the same. I was able to receive a few new channels from Earth. CNN, NBC and the like. I had the dates of the time when the news where sent, so the rest was just a bit simple math."

Tenchi snorted.

"Just a month?"

"Well, I could be a day or two more, we could even be here earlier than the date you remember for the day you landed in the Earth Alliance."

Tenchi frowned a bit. He remembered everything that happened since than. The last thing he could remember from back home was that Washuu showed everyone her newest invention, the Washuu Extradim Teleporter 9000. That and the scream of 'MIHOSHI!' before all went black.

The next thing he remembered was that he woke in a hospital in Geneva, near Earthdome. He had been found somewhere in the woods near the city with some injuries, several broken bones and a lung pierced by a rib. He had no ID or anything, but the authorities had been quick to come up with a explanation. He had to be someone who lived in one of the no-tech communes that had settles near Geneva, and those rarely left their homes and normally had no form of ID, most of them weren't even in the DNA data bank

Tenchi had done the only thing he could at that moment. He had stuck to that story. When the authorities wanted to bring him back, he refused, wanting to explore the world. He had done so for about three years. Than the Minbari-Earth Alliance war started because some asshole fired at a Minbari ship and killed one of their leaders.

He had been drafted into Earth Force and put into a Starfury. He had survived the war and even the Battle of the Line. In that time he had seen many of his friends and fellow pilots die. Sometimes he still had nightmares about that time now and than.

The war left him changed, like many other survivors. He remained in Earth Force and went to Earth Force Academy to eventually get his own command of a new ship.

Before Santiago had been killed he had been given his first command. An old Nova from before the Minbari war, the _Niel_ _Armstrong_. She had been an old ship, but she had been his. After that came Clarke. Tenchi had still remembered his old history lessons from back home and saw the similarities to the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler. He even saw similarities to Orson Wells '1984', a book he had read sometimes before he had to worry about aliens princesses and pirates.

Babylon 5 left Earth Force and the Shadow War came. Tenchi had switched sides back than, helping Sheridan. The good old _Armstrong_ had fought in most of the battles and been damaged, but survived to fight against Clarke's regime. The last battle of the _Armstrong_ had been the battle with Clarke's Shadow Omegas which crippled the _Armstrong_, leaving her a wreck, but a wreck that had been evacuated in time.

After Clarke's fall and the end of his regime, Tenchi had gotten a new command for a short time. Another Nova. But than he got the command over the _Dark Knight_, one of the first ever build Warlocks. He had flown a few missions for the EFNI and the Interstellar Alliance. And in the end it had lead to the salvage of the Vorlon wreck which fused with the _Dark Knight_ and bonded to him.

Later he had fought a battle against the Drahk his ship had shown another thing that got him out of the ropes. _Dark_ _Knight_ had used Tenchis abilities to create three Light Hawk Wings to protect herself and her captain, followed by the destruction of a Drahk Cruiser and several Drahk Raiders.

The Light Hawk Wings had been all to visible on the battlefield and the EFNI had become very interested, since they hadn't seen something like that on any of the recorded fights of the Vorlons. So Tenchi had to explain everything. He had even be forced to drop the illusion that he had grown older over the yeas since he came to the Earth Alliance universe, showing that he still looked like a 17 year old below.

All the probing, experiments and all other things by the docs and the EFNI had lead him to get away from Earth with _Dark_ _Knight_ and Setsuna. That had been two years ago. He had become something of a freelancer, but eventually he found a way home, with the help of an old friend in EFNI who had some very interesting information about the Third Space Gate.

In the end Dark Knight had been able to create a Third Space Jump Engine to use and get back home tracking Tenchis resident quantum signature. And now he was here, back home just about four light years from home.

He sighed and closed his eyes. He would be able to wait to go home. He had waited more than 25 years, so a few hours wouldn't be too much.

"I don't like to interrupt your memories," _Dark_ _Knight_ said in his mind," But our guests are here. They will come through the door any moment now."

Tenchi breathed in deep and turned around, ready to face Baker ans any of his companions.

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Setsuna smiled a bit as the main access lock to the bridge opened and showed a very empty bridge, aside from the captains chair with Tenchi sitting in it. The chair swirled around and Tenchi looked at Baker and the three Narn. He looked them over for a few moments, his glance locking with one specific Narn.

"Yes, he is G'Kar, or more exactly Citizen G'Kar one of the ex-leaders of the Narn Regime," Setsuna thought into _Dark_ _Knights_ direction, knowing that the mind of the ship would bounce her telephatic communication at Tenchi.

Tenchis only reaction to her transmitted thoughts was a slightly raised eyebrow. Setsuna walked up to Tenchi and the captains chair and she stood half right behind the chair, her gloved hands on her back, observing the four visitors.

"Welcome aboard of _Dark_ _Knight_, Director Baker," Tenchi finally said to the very nervous human, than he directed his look towards G'Kar," Citizen G'Kar."

The three Narn stared at Tenchi and Baker turned around to stare at G'Kar.

"How..."

"I think I know quite a bit," Tenchi replied and than seemed to listen to an inaudible voice in his head.

Setsuna knew that he listened to _Dark_ _Knight_ and something she had to say to him.

"I didn't forget you," she also heard the ship say in her mind," I just finished downloading the entire database of Novak Station. Very interesting. It seems that all known races of our universe are present here and had more or less the same history. Just with the absence of the Vorlons and the Shadows. I can't find anything about them in the database. Through there are quite a few ships lost in the area of the Vorlon Empire and other areas I know belong to the Shadows."

_Dark_ _Knight_ made a short pause and Setsuna looked at the three Narn.

"There was a war between the Centauri and the Narn a few decades ago and the Narn leaders were forced to abandon their people. Looks like G'Kar got stranded here."

"In fact," the female modulated voice of _Dark_ _Knight_ said over the speakers of the bridge," I have just completed downloading the database of Novak Station. Of cause I want to apologize for that Director."

"Who...?" Baker said wide eyed and looked at the nearest speaker.

"I am _Dark_ _Knight_," the ship said and her voice seemed to carry a smile," I am this ship, not only the main computer as you may think. By the way, It is nice to see you, Citizen G'Kar."

Tenchi chuckled a bit and smiled.

"I think you want an explanation?"

"Yes, I think we want," G'Kar said with a calm voice Setsuna knew from his dimensional counterpart from her universe.

"And what is Earth Alliance?" Baker said a bit less calm," I know that Earth is nowhere near Quantum 3 level technology."

Tenchi breathed in deep and closed his eyes for a moment.

"It begun all 25 years ago from my position," Tenchi began and started to tell an incomplete version of his life.

There was a long silence after Tenchis tale and Setsuna scanned over the surface of the four peoples minds. Baker was the first to believe the story. Interested in that, she probed a bit deeper, coming over memories of being abducted by the Vree and experimented on. She winced internally, remembering the experiments of Psi Corps. Two of the Narn were likewise more or less convinced, but G'Kar examined Tenchi for a longer time.

"But you look very much like a Jurian," he said slowly," I fact I can see a resemblance to Emperor Azuka of Jurai. Not to mention the twitch of yours when the Doranian called you a Jurian."

For a moment he stopped and Tenchi frowned.

"I guess you don't tell us everything."

Tenchis frown changed to a thin smile.

"I see you are very much like your dimensional counterpart, G'Kar."

"I take that as a compliment."

"It was intended as such."

Tenchi wanted to say something else as Setsuna had to wince slightly. _Dark_ _Knight_ send some very alarmed feelings, which were enough to give Setsuna a short headache.

"Tenchi," _Dark_ _Knight_ said out loud," I think we have a problem."

"What is it?"

"There are Twelve Doranian Cruisers en route to Earth. I fear that there isn't anything that would help Earth, beside us in a surprise attack. If I read the psychological profile of the Doranians right..."

Tenchi narrowed his eyes and turned to Setsuna.

"We don't have much time," he said," bring our guests to their shuttle. We will leave to Earth as soon as their are of _Dark_ _Knight_."

Setsuna sighed. And turned to the four guests.

"If you want to follow me," she said and walked towards the main access door.

"I think I remain aboard," G'Kar said with a smile and his red eyes seemed to glow from an inner light," There is much to learn from you, Commodore Masaki. And about you."

Setsuna looked towards Tenchi, before Tenchi nodded.

"You are welcome, Citizen G'Kar."

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Baker looked out of the window of the shuttle as it had left the hangar deck of _Dark_ _Knight_. It only slightly occurred him that this ship could have been his way back to Earth.

He sighed. Back to Earth? Back... Home?

He wasn't really sure, if Earth was still home. His friends and family most likely thought that he was dead. His wife and his daughter were dead by the hands of the Vree. His look switched to the amalgam of ship hulls that hung next to the big orange ship in space. That hunk of scrap metal was more home than Earth. All his friend were there, some of them maybe were his family.

There was also something else. He didn't think that he could have been on that ship much longer. It was something he automatically disliked. It was alien to anything else he knew or learned to knew. That was also the reason why he had been so flushed when he met Masaki. He couldn't even really remember the story he had told.

He sighed. Oh well. It was unlikely that he would ever meet him again or see that aliens ship of his.

Baker looked back to the large orange battleship. It had accelerated and there was something that looked like a small star appearing directly in front of it. The star expanded and a red glowing funnel appeared. The _Dark_ _Knight_ accelerated into the funnel got faster and disappeared in it. The funnel closed behind it.

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G'Kar stood on the bridge of the Dark Knight and looked at the view screen in front of him. It showed the angry red swirls of a medium that was completely unknown to him. This was a totally different way of Faster Than Light travel, than Quantum Slipstream, which had named the technology levels based on the Energy bands of Slipstream. He turned around and looked at Tenchi.

"What was this called again?"

Tenchi sighed and stood up to his full hight. He stretched a bit and let the bones in his neck crack as he moved his head. Setsuna was sitting on a seat Tenchi had told was behind the Weapons Control console.

"This is called Hyperspace."

With that he suddenly seemed to be 25 years younger and continued to stretch.

"We access it with a Hyperspace Jump Engine that needs a substance called Quantum 40 to work properly."

He looked at G'Kar who looked very intensely at him.

"Is something?"

"I was right, you are a Jurian," G'Kar said after a moment.

Tenchi shook his head.

"No, actually I am only a part Jurian. My grandfather is Yosho."

G'Kar sat down on one of the empty chair behind the Navigation Console and sighed.

"I have heard stories about Yosho, when I was on Jurai," he said with another sigh," before the Centauri invaded Narn."

He whirled around in the chair and faced the view screen again.

"Yosho was Emperor Azukas son, wasn't he?"

"Yes, he is."

G'Kar's chair turned around again to face Tenchi.

"So he is still alive."

"Yes."

G'Kar chuckled a bit.

"It is said that he followed this space pirate, I think Ryoko was her name, after she laid waste to Jurai."

He looked back to the screen and looked at the swirls of hyperspace.

"That ship of hers is said to be of Quantum 4 level. Only the Old Ones and the First Ones are said to have such technology. Even the Jurians and the Minbari are only on Quantum 3 level."

He turned back to Tenchi.

"He managed to defeat her, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did."

"Did he kill her?"

Tenchi shook his head.

"No, she was imprisoned by him."

G'Kar shook his head with a slight smile on his face.

"Looks like he was as he is how he was said to be. No wonder why his parents miss him and want him back on Jurai."

"We have reached the Sol System," _Dark_ _Knights_ voice said," I will open a jump point in ten seconds and we will get out of hyperspace at lunar orbit."

"Lets hope we don't crash into the moon," Setsuna said with a chuckle.

A short 'humpf' was all _Dark_ _Knight_ had to say to Setsunas comment.

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He had closed his eyes and breathed in deep. As he opened his eyes he looked back at the very worried faces of the Joint Chiefs. He had never thought that aliens would come to Earth during his time as President of the United States of America. Let alone that they would start an invasion.

The aliens had entered orbit around Earth about two hours ago and after jamming any satellite communication had transmitted a video signal, where they said something in their own language. Than one hour ago they had started to randomly destroy anything on Earth, but mostly major population centers.

President Jack Ryan breathed in deep again and looked at the large plasma screen that now showed a view of New York. The South Tower of the World Trade Center spotted a large hole that went right through it.

"I guess we now can tell what sort of weapon they use for their orbital bombardment," his scientific adviser said with a sigh.

"And what weapon would that be?" one of the Joint Chiefs asked with a raising volume of his voice.

"Kinetic Strikes," the adviser said," Basically they are throwing rocks at us."

"I would have thought that they would use beam weapons or nuclear weapons," another general said.

"Kinetic Strikes are more effective in any possible way to beam or nuclear weapons from orbit," the adviser continued," You just need to carry a lot of rocks with you, each weighting several dozen tons and drop it on a planet. Gravity does the rest. Each impact of a Kinetic Strike is as powerful as a small nuclear weapon, but without the radioactive fallout. And they are cost effective, because in space you just need to go to the next asteroid field to get new rocks to throw."

The room degraded into bickering and wild talking as the adviser had finished. Ryan wasn't in the mood to do anything at this moment, remembering one of the last books he had read, Niven's 'Footfall'. He just hoped that something happened before he had to order a _Michael_ to be build.

The door of the meeting room deep beneath the White House opened and an aid entered in a hurry.

"Mr. President," he started, breathing hard from getting to the meeting room fast," NORAD has an unknown object on their radar. A large object is ascending into orbit from Japan."

All eyes in the room where on the aid, who became very nervous.

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"I have told you not to try and follow Tenchi," Washuu said with a frown on her face.

Directly across her Ryoko and Ayeka looked very green as they remembered what happened when they were in another universe for a moment. Ryo-oki was still in a coma from that short misadventure.

"You can be fortunate that I pulled you out before he finished. Vogon poetry can be quite deadly..."

Ayeka couldn't help herself and ran towards the toilet of the _Yagami_, looking very green in the face.

"We are getting into visual range of the Doranian fleet," the AI of the _Yagami_ announced, since Mihoshi was still very busy to cry her eyes out, mainly because she had caused Tenchi to disappear, Ryo-oki to fall into a coma induced by Vogon poetry and incidentally locked away any weapon in Washuu's lab that would have dealt with the Doranians without destroying the rest of the system with them.

The twelve Doranian Cruisers could be seen through the main window of the _Yagami's_ cockpit. Small object were accelerated away from them, by large mass drivers strapped beneath the nine hundred meter long Cruisers.

"This is Galaxy Police Patrol Ship _Yagami_," the ships AI announced," You are in direct violation of the Jurian Protected Planets Treaty, stand down, deactivate your weapons and prepare to be taken into custody."

The leader of the Doranian fleet reacted very much in character and opened fire at the Patrol Ship. The blasts of the weapons were taken from the shields of the ship, but the stress inductor shot right into the red area. _Yagami_ made a evading maneuver and broke away from the Doranian Cruisers.

"Why are you breaking away," Ryoko asked this AI very angry.

The mechanical head stared at her.

"Do you think I'm suicidal? Those ships maybe of Quantum 1 level, but they pack some punch. And I'm only a Patrol Ship, not a warship. I can't take them on and think to win."

The head started to sweat as Ryoko glared at him.

"And even if I attacked them, I could only take maybe two or three ships before going down myself."

He suddenly stopped.

"Incoming objects," he said," Speed about 9 PLS. Resolving objects."

The eyes of the mechanical head seamed to bulge out.

"Kinetic Kill Vehicles," he simply said as the firework behind the _Yagami_ started.


	4. Chapter 4

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 3

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A few moments before the _Yagami_ encountered the Doranian fleet, a jump point opened about one million kilometers away from Earth. Four rather large missiles, each of them at least thirty meter in length and four meter in diameter. They were driven by large ion engines and slowly accelerated towards the blue orb in space that was Earth. Their targeting sensors started to scan the area for the Doranian Cruisers, based on the data they got programmed into their memory.

They needed a few moments to find the Cruisers and targeted them. Small explosives caused the casing of the missiles to split open, revealing a rather large solid looking cylinder of fifteen meter length and four meter diameter. The cylinder glistered like metal in the light of the sun, slightly reflecting it into other directions and on the four pieces of casing that had surrounded it. The ion engines burned through their last bits of fuel, accelerating the cylinder slowly.

The missiles needed only about ten seconds to burn through their remaining fuel, giving the cylinders a last kick before they separated. The cylinders didn't remain inert. Each had a powerful gravitational engine on one end, giving it a high acceleration, speeding it up into the relativistic speeds with ease.

Speeding past one and two PSL the cylinders accelerated towards their targets, correcting their path slightly to pick them out.

Aboard the Doranian Cruisers the tactical technicians consoles lit up as the cylinders engaged their engines and gave of high amounts of Electromagnetic Radiation. They knew that those things that lit up their scopes were missiles. As a Quantum 1 civilization the still knew about missiles and their effects, other than most civilizations of Quantum 2 and 3 levels.

Point Defense Rail guns of the ships swung around, targeting the missiles, waiting for them to enter range.

But the technicians started to sweat a bit as the missiles continued to speed up, not really understanding the concept the missiles were based on. Kinetic Kill Vehicles didn't need a warhead and they were almost immune against most Point Defense Weapons. Rail guns and other small caliber kinetic weapons only scratched at the surface of the large massive steel cylinders and most low power laser weapons only managed to raise the temperature of the cylinders.

The KKV continued to speed up, speeding up towards 10 PLS, only that they impacted into the shields of four Doranian Cruisers at 8,5 PLS. The kinetic energy of the impact split the KKV apart, reducing the massive steel cylinder to small flechette like shards and vaporizing a good part of it. The shields in question collapsed under the massive kinetic energy strike and the flechette shards of the steel cylinders ripped right through the cruisers armor like a hot knife through butter, reducing the most powerful Quantum 1 Cruisers to heaps of scrap metal. The last bits of flechette steel shards slammed into the shields of the remaining eight Cruisers, stressing them, flying off into deep space or burned away when they entered Earth atmosphere.

Of cause the Doranians didn't knew what happened. The sudden loss of four ships to four seemingly harmless missiles, was totally unbelievable. Their shields had the strength to withstand nuclear weapons.

Their confusion was further intensified as they detected an Energy Spike right on top of them. Some sort of red glowing funnel opened and a giant orange colored shape jumped out of it. As the orange shape exited the funnel, two lances of white blue light and a white lightning stabbed out from it and into the shields of two Cruisers. The shields flared up for a short moment, only to collapse and let the energy melt the armor and the rest of the ship beneath it.

The orange shape left the funnel, resolving into a large orange colored space ship that looked like a mix of a four armed squid and a brick. The ship opened fire at the still surprised and confused from the turrets mounted on the lower and upper part of the ships hull. Lighting streaked out from turrets that looked like the front of the large ship, rail gun shell flew from rail gun turrets and several smaller missiles streaked out to impact into the shields.

The impacts of the lower powered secondary weapons of the large battleship was enough to shake the Doranians from their stupor and the six remaining ships started to fight back. But the answer to the fire from the Doranian Cruisers were three Light Hawk Wings flaring up to intercept the energy blasts.

In haste one of the ships turned away from the battle, while sending a message to its home port.

The orange battleship swung around, aiming its primary weapons at the fleeing ship and a large lightning streaked out to collapse its shield and destroy the ship. The battleship continued to swing around, targeting another Cruiser and destroying it with a deadly lance of blue white light.

But the secondary weapons were also enough to collapse the shield of one Cruiser and destroy it. It was only a matter of second until the last three ships meet their fate and were destroyed outright by the large battleship.

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Everyone could guess about the glint in Washuu's eyes as the people aboard of _Yagami_ watched the short battle (or was is a slaughter?) on the screens. It had begun with four Kinetic Kill Vehicles going at around 8 PSL, cracking the Doranian shields with ease and ripping the targeted Cruisers apart in a hail of steel flechette shards. The concept of KKV's was known throughout the galaxy, but no one used them, they just didn't seem to be practical. But who ever shot those KKV's showed that they were practical.

After the KKV's impact and the resulting confusion of the Doranians some sort of portal had opened and blasts of energy just obligated two more Cruisers, before the large orange battleship left the portal. The ship had to be at least two kilometers in length and bristled with weapons. But the real surprise came when the Cruisers opened fire at the battleship and three Light Hawk Wings flared up to protect the ship.

Everyone stared at the large battleship and the white glowing polygons of energy, while the ship made short work out of the remaining Cruisers.

A few moments nothing happened, aside from the Light Hawk Wing winking out of existence. Then the battleship slowly came about the bow facing the _Yagami_, casing everyone to swallow, hard.

"I don't think I could fight that ship," the AI of the _Yagami_ said silently," Ryo-oki could most likely do it, but I don't."

"Well, maybe we should thank them," Katsuhito commented from behind, his face being his normal pokerface, not betraying any of his thoughts," They saved Earth after all."

"Uhm... We don't have to hail them," the AI said after a moment," the ship is hailing us."

A holographic screen appeared in the air and everyone looked at the carefully schooled face of a dark green haired and red eyed woman that looked Jurian or at least Japanese.

"This is Earth Force Advanced Destroyer _Dark_ _Knight_. Please respond."

"This is Galaxy Police Patrol Ship _Yagami_," the AI responded," My captain is, hum..."

The mechanic head of the AI looked towards Mihoshi who was still wailing about the things she had done in the last few days, including getting Tenchi transported into another universe.

"... indistponated..."

The woman raised an eyebrow.

"Anyway," the AI continued," did you just say 'Earth Force'?"

"Yes, I did," the woman answered.

"Would you please explain that? Such an organization or your ship isn't in any of my data-bases."

The woman smiled slightly.

"I know that," she said and caused the AI to be confused," My captain would like to invite all of you aboard."

"All of us?"

The woman just smiled and cut the connection. There was a short silence.

"I guess I bring us close to that ship," the AI said and sighed.

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President Jack Ryan and the Joint Chiefs present in the command bunker below the White House stared at the plasma screen that showed a large picture taken by one of the recon satellites that had been pointed at the alien fleet. At the moment it showed a rather large orange vessel, clearly a battleship based on the large number of turrets on its surface, and the small red craft that had entered orbit from Japan.

Ryan sighed as he looked at the Joint Chiefs and saw them nearly drooling at the display of firepower they had seen from the orange battleship. They still wanted to know how it destroyed six of the other ships without being visually detected, before it had appeared between them from a red funnel.

"Okay," one of the Generals said, idly wiping something from the corner of his mouth," That ship destroyed the aliens, but how do we know it won't destroy us?"

Ryan closed his eyes for a moment.

"I think that remains to be seen," he answered," But we should be glad for the moment."

"Yeah, at least until that ship starts to destroy cities."

Ryan sat up.

"For the moment I don't care much about that orange ship," he said," I care more about the red ship. It lifted of in Japan after all. I guess I should call Prime Minister Koga and ask him if he knows something."

"If the Japanese have such a technology," said one of the Generals," I just don't see why the Japanese renegades resorted to a plane for killing the whole government when they could used a spaceship to blast it."

Ryan glared at the General in question.

"You are just envious for that technology," he said," if it is theirs in the first place."

"With all those comics and cartoons of the Japs, I wouldn't be very surprised if they actually managed to create one of those ships of theirs," someone said.

"Next time you tell me that there are supernatural beings threatening all life," was the answer of someone else.

"I wouldn't be surprised. We just found out that there are aliens after all."

"With their ships looking like the city destroyers from ID4."

Ryan sighed again at the bickering of the generals. They were in some ways worse than Star Trek fans discussing their series.

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It had been a long time since he had started to listen. A very long time. He could still remember the old day when he had been constructed. Had he been able to do so, he had sighed and tapped his finger somewhere, because listening was just boring. Maybe it was because he was an artificial soul, a ghost, made it possible for him to be bored. But he was patient.

Since he had been first activated the mother planet of the natural satellite he bad been build into had orbited around its sun about one hundred thousand times. And it had been more then twenty five thousand orbits since the great war that had all but destroyed his old masters.

They had been one of the First Ones, just like the Vorlons or the Shadows. But they had been very different to the other First Ones. Their race had been created a long time ago, by one of the three sisters, the last Old Ones, the first intelligent living beings that had existed in the universe. They had been everything she had dreamed of, true children of her. She had used genetic material of the world where she and her sisters had come into existence and made a projection how a race would look like when it evolved on that planet.

His masters had become the sisters protégées, as the Vorlons and the Shadows had become the protégées of the other sisters, as they followed their chosen way of life.

They had lived for a very long time and eventually left the planet of origin completely and settled down on the other worlds of the system, following the sister and her footsteps. They had existed in this way for a very long time, until younger races came, some of them carrying the genetic legacy engineered into them by other First Ones, and the First Ones left the galaxy and went beyond the rim. Only the Shadows, the Vorlons and his Masters remained behind.

They in turn had taken on younger races as protégées and for some time everything was Okay. But than the Vorlons and the Shadows began to argue about how to influence the younger races. The Shadows wanted to start wars between them to weed out the weak and bring the strong ones to power. But the Vorlons wanted to use rigid order to bring them to the next station. His Masters didn't want to become involved into this argument between the Shadows and the Vorlons, but in the end they became involved as the two combatants adopted a stance of 'Everyone who isn't with me, is against me'.

In the end, 25000 orbits of the mother planet ago, the last dispute, or better war, between the Shadows and the Vorlons ended and his Masters were all but wiped out. Since than, he had been alone, listening to the universe, waiting for the return of his Masters.

In the last few dozen orbits of the mother planet, he had started to hope for their return. It seemed that survivors of the last dispute and the annihilation of his Masters had crashed on the mother planet and interbreed with the native population, the race that had naturally evolved into the same form the Sister had anticipated far in the past when she had created his Masters.

Only about 35 orbits ago, the natives had landed several times on the natural satellite that he had been build into. He had observed them and had been proud of their achievements. He didn't know of any of the younger races that had gotten into space at this speed. Normally they needed a minimum time of two hundred years from using the first plane to building the first chemically propelled rocket. They had managed to do so in less than forty years.

It would have been only a matter of time until they would find him on their own and he would welcome them as the predecessors of his Masters as they were.

But something had changed, especially in the last few orbits. Ships from outside of the system had come and landed on the planet, or more exactly a chain of volcanic islands in a tectonic active region of the mother planet. Than there had been this very large spaceship that had appeared. It had been a very high Quantum 3 level ship, bordering into Quantum 4 level, but he was positive that he could have destroyed if, if he had needed to. He had stayed hidden, wanting to observe before acting. Thankfully the ship had been destroyed before he had been forced to act.

And only a few fractions of a turn of the mother planet a Quantum 1 fleet had appeared and started to fire at the planet after demanding the leaders of the planet to surrender and gave them 1/24 th of a planetary turn for it. After that they had started to fire kinetic strikes at major population centers. He had hoped that the ships that had been landing on the planet would deal with it, but only a small Quantum 2 ship had lifted of, attacking the more powerful fleet.

Than the surprise came for him. Four KKV appeared from nowhere and destroyed four of the ships, followed by the destruction of the rest of the fleet by the hand of an unknown ship. The ship had features of a Vorlon ship, but it also carried features of the ships his Masters used to build. And the two life signs aboard the ship, aside from the big life sign of the ship, were identical to those generated by his Masters. And they were more pure than the nine life signs he read on the planets surface, who seemed to be reincarnated females of a splinter group of his Masters Race.

Nathan would have sighed and breathed in deep. He needed to think about what to do next. Maybe he should reduce the power of the event horizon stealth fields and let that ship notice that something big was below Luna's surface. The only thing that he did instantaneous was extending a small receiver panel that was below a rather large ruin of a palace build by the splinter group of his Masters around the 'magician' Serenity.


	5. Chapter 5

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 4

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All Sailor Senshi had gathered at the shrine as the news announced that aliens had appeared in Earth orbit. Of cause they had their fair share of alien invasions, such as the Doom Tree, or supernatural menaces, but before they always had attacked on the ground in the end, using monsters for their fight and only attacking Tokyo, well with one exception, Beryl attacking London. But this was different.

Amy had announced that these aliens had to be friendly, but she quickly revised her opinion after they started to fling rocks at major population centers all over the planet. Amy had realized what had happened first, the kinetic strikes should bring the Earth Governments to give up and allow the aliens to land and take over.

Three of the kinetic strikes had hit Tokyo. One had impacted over in Nerima, another one near the Emperors palace and the last had destroyed Tokyo Tower and a good portion of Juuban. The wail of sirens filled the air and the media talked about emergency plans being taken, that were normally reserved for earthquakes.

About fifteen minutes earlier breaking news came. The launch of an unknown ship from Japans soil. Of cause everybody had cheered at the ship, hoping that it would turn out to be an _Arcadia_ or _Yamato_ and fight the aliens back. They hadn't really been interested in how that ship came here at all, just worrying about the ship and the destruction of the alien invaders.

What else should they have done? The Sailor Senshi weren't able to reach orbit and fight the aliens on their own.

The next more breaking new five minutes later, had been that another ship had appeared in orbit and destroyed the invaders just like that. Two minutes later they got a good picture of the ship that had appeared, showing an orange colored ship that looked like a cross between a squid and a brick.

That had been the time when Setsuna went white as a sheet and started to just stare out in the open. Since than she hadn't moved at all. She hadn't even blinked.

At the moment everyone was trying to decide what to do now. Was the orange ship a friend or an enemy? What would happen next? Was the captain of the ship a cute guy?

Everyone who was able to do so stared at Makoto, who blushed in response.

"What?"

"That ship has to have a captain," Makoto stated," I just want to know if he is cute."

Rei crossed her arms and gave a short glare.

"And what if the captain of that ship is female?"

"Uhm..." Makoto made and started to sweat a bit.

"Actually, that is a good question..." Haruka said and grinned a bit.

Of cause she got the elbow of her significant other into her side.

A short beep of the Mercury Computer, at the moment placed into Ami's lap, got everybody's attention to the little piece of very sophisticated hardware. Ami looked at the screen and her face seemed to form a question mark for a moment.

"That orange ship is a mix of human technology with Vorlon technology?"

She looked up.

"What or who are Vorlons?"

At that moment, Setsuna's body decided to fall back, while still remaining in the same position as before.

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Slowly the air lock of the _Yagami_ opened up into the docking port of _Dark_ _Knight_. The 'crew' of the _Yagami_ looked out into the still closed docking port. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut it. The crew, Ayeka, Ryoko, Washuu, Katsuhito and Mihoshi looked at each other.

With a loud hiss the lock of the docking port opened, showing the leather clad figure of the woman they had talked to earlier over radio. They could see the small pin with the Greek letter psi on her chest. She smiled at the 'crew' and made a inviting gesture with her gloved hand.

"Welcome aboard of _Dark_ _Knight_," she said," If would would follow me to the bridge please?"

They were lead through empty corridors. Signs and small terminals here and there showed Latin letters, easy to identify as script in the English language. Everything about the corridors looked as if they had been designed by human engineers, mainly because most races didn't use this mostly utilitarian design, well aside from the Quantum 0 civilizations that were still new to space. But the technology of this ship looked to be at a high Quantum 1 level or low Quantum 2 level, with the biological technology seamlessly integrated into the rest, it had to be of a high Quantum 2 level.

Setsuna chuckled silently as she received that particular thought.

"What did you say is this ship?" Washuu asked after some time, her holographic desktop floating beside her, making scans.

Setsuna chuckled a bit.

"This ship is an Advanced Destroyer of the Warlock class. At least in its basic layout. It was changed after the wreck of a bioship integrated itself into the structure of the ship."

"And of what race would that bioship be?"

"It was a Vorlon ship," Setsuna answered and continued to walk towards a elevator.

"Vorlon?" Washuu, Katsuhito and Ryoko asked at the same time, stopping.

Ayeka and Mihoshi didn't really know what that was about, but stopped also. Looking a bit nervous at the equally nervous faces of the others.

"Yes, Vorlon," Setsuna said and the elevator opened in front of her," If you would, please."

Slightly nervous the crew followed her.

"I had a short run in with the Vorlons," Ryoko said silently," They nearly killed me and Ryo-oki, when we entered their space. I guess they would have been able to destroy Soya."

Setsuna raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened. Behind the door was yet another empty corridor, with a large door at its end.

"Why haven't we met any members of the crew yet?"

Setsuna shrugged.

"Because the Captain and I are the only members of the crew. The members of the old crew left the ship because _Dark_ _Knights_ presence is a bit too much for them."

There was a short silence.

"Presence?"

Setsuna stopped in front of the large door.

"We are there," she said and the door opened," The bridge."

The area behind the doors opened, letting the group look into a large empty area that looked like a cross between a Battle Command Center of an American carrier and the bridge of an American Carrier. It had the same utilitarian design as the rest of the ship but had a much larger layout.

There was a Narn sitting behind one of the consoles, but he didn't look as if he would work. In fact he had crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the newcomers.

"Looks like your guests are here, Captain," he said into the direction of the large chair in the middle of the bridge.

The chair swirled around.

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President Ryan waited patiently at the receiver of the phone for Premier Koga to pick up his receiver, after his secretary had informed him of cause. A few moments later the receiver on the other side was picked up.

"Konishiwa Yoshi," Ryan said into the phone.

"Konishiwa President Ryan," Premier Koga answered.

"I want to give my condolences to you for the losses in Tokyo, Kobe and Hiroshima."

Koga winced noticeably as Ryan mentioned Hiroshima. The city had been destroyed the second time in under 70 years, this time by one of the largest kinetic strikes the 'City Destroyers', as the Generals started to call them, had performed. That last Kinetic Strike of a whole lot of Strikes had completely leveled the city.

"Thank you, Mr. President," Koga answered," And I would like to give you my Condolences for New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Boston."

Ryan nodded and breathed in deep. Dallas had been the last city before Hiroshima to be the target of a KS and it had only been slightly smaller than the last, but it had still destroyed a good portion of Dallas.

"Yoshi," Ryan said after a moment," I have a little problem here. It concerns Japan."

"Yes?" Koga asked, sounding slightly nervous.

"During the Bombardment," Ryan started and made a short pause, looking for the right words," NORAD detected a space ship lifting off from somewhere in Japan. It is the red ship that now docks with the orange ship that destroyed the Invaders."

Ryan could hear Koga breathing in deep over the telephone. There was a short silence and than Koga talked to someone else in Japanese. Ryan knew that the conversation was recorded, since he had ordered it, so he was sure that he would get a translation of the Japanese conversation in the background in one hour.

"Mr. President?" Koga asked after about one minute.

"Yes, Yoshi?"

Koga breathed in deep again.

"What I'm telling you now has been a secret of the Emperor for over seven hundred years now."

Ryan raised an eyebrow and the Generals in the room looked at the speaker of the phone very interested.

"I'm all ears, Yoshi."

Koga breathed in yet again.

"About seven hundred years ago, an alien price landed in the country side of the Prefecture Okayama on Honshu in pursuit of a space pirate."

"Alien Price?" " Space Pirate?" were the reaction of two Generals.

"His space ship and the ship of the pirate were destroyed during the fight and the price was stranded here. Since than he and his descendants had more or less permanent contact to the Emperor. About a year ago, one of these descendants informed us about several landings of alien space ships near Okayama, where the price had build a shrine. One of those ships was a Patrol Ship of an intergalactic organization called Galaxy Police. From his informations Galaxy Police seems to be exactly what the name implies. I believe that the ship that launched from Japan was this Patrol Ship."

Ryan was stunned. This sounded much like one of the plots from one of those Japanese Maga, or Magna, or how else those comics were called.

"You had contact with aliens for 700 years now?"

"That is correct, Mr. President."

"Are they humanoid?"

"Yes," Koga said and breathed in deep," In fact it seems that they claim that Earth is one of their Colony Worlds."

"Colony World?" came from more than one General.

Ryan closed his eyes.

"Thank you Yoshi," Ryan said," I think we will talk again soon."

"Goodbye, Mr. President."

With that Ryan placed the receiver back on top of the phone and looked at one of his aids.

"Get me NASA, I want to talk to the aliens."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Sorutal growled low as he looked at the large view screen in front of him. His ears flattened to his skull and his tail waved in agitation. He just watched how his Cruisers were destroyed by an unknown force over some backwater planet in pouncing distance of the Doranian Protectorate.

"Protector?" Chancellor Meral asked the leader of the Protectorate.

Sorutal turned his head and focused his slitted pupils on Meral as the video continued to run for the third time. Meral breathed in deep and suppressed any nervousness he had.

"What can you tell me about that ship?"

Sorutal's hand raised and a claw pointed at the orange colored ship that was shown in the last frame of the video feed. Meral shook his head.

"Nothing, Protector," he said," We have found nothing about a ship of that design in any of the databases. Through there are several artifacts that have a certain resemblance to that ship. Several wrecks that were encountered in our system during the First Raising."

"The First Raising..." Sorutal said and lowered his arm.

He started to pace up and down in front of the large view screen The First Raising had been nearly a millennium ago, when the first Doranians ascended into space with spaceships that had been propelled by nuclear pulse engines. These large spaceships had allowed them to reach the second planet of their system, a planet that was perfectly fit for life on it, providing new hunting grounds for the growing population. During that time they had found several ships that introduced them to slipstream and let them reach further into space.

"That ship is resembling ships of the Ancients?"

"It is of the same basic design, Protector."

Sorutal looked back at the screen and than walked slowly to the large hey mat directly in a large patch of sunlight, the traditional resting place of all Protectors of the Doranian Protectorate. He slowly laid down on the mat and curled up on it. Than he looked at Meral.

"Leave me alone. I need to think about this."

"Yes, Protector," Meral answered and left the room.

Sorutal placed his head on his hands and breathed in deep. During the Second Raising, when the Protectorate encountered the first non-Doranian races and new hunting grounds on other planet not in their system, they had started to look for remains of the Ancients. During this time they had build a large fleet and the Cruisers had become the feared ships they were today.

Many planets and systems with the remains of the Ancients had fallen to the might of the Protectorate and several races became the slaves they were today. Of cause it was fortunate that most races they had encountered and conquered were of a lower Quantum Level than the Protectorate. Only one race, the Stribe had been of a higher level, but in the end they had fallen to the Cruisers of the Protectorate.

But the last conquest had been over a hundred years ago. A reptilian people that called themselves 'The Race'. They had the interstellar flight capabilities to be a Quantum 0 civilization, but they lacked the Slipstream Drive to achieve this level. Since than only Civilizations of a Quantum 2 level were surrounding the space of the Protectorate, The League of Nonaligned Worlds, the Centauri, Narn and Minbari, not to mention the Juraians, hindering the expansion of the Protectorate into new hunting grounds.

And now this. A ship that seemed to come from the Ancients themselves, still in one piece and in peak fighting condition. And near a planet that was suiting for the needs of the Protectorate as a new hunting ground.

He smiled a catty smile. Even if he send his whole fleet to this planet the Ancient ship would destroy it completely. This called for some help from this person that had approached him not long ago. His associates only needed a small moon near the Jurian border as base of operations in exchange for some help.

And his fleet just needed finish the invasion of the planet and take the Ancient ship into possession.

What has his name been anyway? Morden?

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Dukhat looked at the translucent holographic screen at the scene in front of him. Just a few moments ago, the scene playing on the screen had arrived over subspace radio from the small enclave of Minbari on a space station somewhere in the middle of nowhere, near one of the systems in the Jurian Protected Planets Treaty.

He frowned as he watched the video. That ship looked very much like a Vorlon ship, but at the same time it wasn't.

His people were the only ones the Vorlons trusted and became protégés of this race of First Ones. Ever since the Vorlons had become involved with the Minbari, the Minbari Federation had grown and slowly but surely became one of the most powerful races in the Galaxy. They had brought Valen to them, who created the Gray Council and the Anla-shok, during the time when the pirate Ryoko plagued the Galaxy, with Kagato in her wake.

He breathed in deep as he watched a Quantum Discharge destroying a Doranian Cruiser, while another was destroyed by something that looked like an Ion Beam. Both were powerful weapons. He continued to watch the scene and the ship destroyed the last Cruiser, only to contact the station.

A smaller image appeared in one corner, while the large orange spaceship turned about to face the station. The image showed a man, seeming to be of the Jurian or one of the other Jurian-like races. It was answered by another man. He watched the interaction of the two men.

Than the video ended with a small message that said that the Narn G'Kar had remained on that ship and that it had left with its destination being the planet protected by the Jurians.

A low artificial noise behind him was all he needed to know that a Kosh had watched him.

"The circle is in danger," the Kosh said.

Dukhat frowned. He hated it when the Vorlons talked in riddles and the talk about circles.

"That ship is an unknown for the Vorlons, isn't it."

"It is a danger to the circle," the Kosh answered," It must be dealt with."

Dukhat winced. That could mean everything.

Truth be told, he didn't want to be on the receiving side of the weaponry of that unknown ship.

He breathed in deep.

"It will be dealt with," he said to the Kosh.

The Kosh nodded the head of its encounter suit.

"Good."

With that the Kosh disappeared in the darkness of the room.

Dukhat exhaled in relief. He had to call for the Gray Council. He had this little feeling that he was needed on the fleet that would be send out to deal with the unknown Vorlon-hybrid ship. But first the Warrior Caste had to analyze the capabilities of it.

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"TECHNI!"

This surprised scream from three sources, Ryoko, Ayeka and Mihoshi, rang through the bridge of _Dark_ _Knight_. Tenchi just sat in his command chair and looked at the shocked expressions of his suitors, friends and family with a bemused expression on his face.

Walking up to stand behind Tenchis chair with her arms on her back, Setsuna had to work hard on suppressing a healthy laugh. G'Kar on the other side, watched this with a curious expression and a raised, well whatever the Narn had instead of eyebrows.

"Hi, guys," Tenchi finally answered.

"Nice ship you got here, Tenchi," Katsuhito said with a slight tone of jealousy in his voice.

"Thank you, grandfather," Tenchi said with a smile," 'She's a beauty', to quote this Crocodile Hunter guy from TV."

"I would prefer if you wouldn't take this guy into account, when talking about me, Commodore," a female voice rung out, indicating that _Dark_ _Knight_ had listened to the conversation.

"Well, you are a great ship and a beauty," Tenchi answered with a slight smile, knowing the direction which this would lead to.

"Flattery will get you nowhere, buster."

Tenchi just smiled and looked at his friends, who had gotten into something resembling another shock. This time it was Washuu who came back around first. The mad gleam in her eyes was all Tenchi needed to see to know that she had gone into 'New Guinea Pig' mode.

"Uhm, Washuu-chan," he said carefully," I guess _Dark_ _Knight_ would prefer it to give you all info you need about her design and all technologies that are involved in her creation."

"Of cause," Dark Knight said, before mumbling something about 'vivisection'.

Washuu just blinked a few times at this rapid reaction of Tenchi, before looking at him.

"Where have you been, Tenchi," she asked with a sugar sweet voice, letting Tenchi know that he was in trouble if he didn't answer fast.

"I missed you," came from two sources now, and a long drawn wail from a third, before Tenchi was glomped by three females, each trying to squeeze him to death.

Setsuna couldn't help herself anymore and her pokerface was cracked by barely suppressed laughter. Another indication that she was near loosing it, was the fact that she held her sides.

"He doesn't need you comfort, monster woman!"

"But he needs yours, doesn't he, princess?"

"Yes he does, you demon."

"Oh yes?"

Ayeka and Ryoko let go of Tenchi and glared at each other, while Mihoshi continued to wail, while she continued to hug Tenchi.

This was all Setsuna needed to get over the edge. Her laughter rang trough the bridge of _Dark_ _Knight_ and she had to hold herself to not fall down. Everyone besides Tenchi and Mihoshi turned their heads to blink at the laughing woman. She needed a few minutes to calm her self down, only chuckling a bit madly now and than.

"You are exactly how Tenchi described you," she said," I didn't believe him at first when he told me about you, but now..."

Katsuhito raised an eyebrow and turned to Tenchi.

"I guess you can answer Washuu-chan's question now, Tenchi," he said," Where have you been? Ayeka and Ryoko have tried to follow you, but they ended up in the 'Hitchhikers Guide' universe, directly in a Vogon poetry session."

Tenchi blinked a few times at the last part of Katsuhito's question, but than shook his head.

"Well, I ended up in a universe where mankind had managed to do the final step and reach out for the stars," he began his tale. Of cause it was the same slightly modified version he had already fed to Baker and G'Kar.

"After the transport, the first thing I remember was that I awoke in a very high tech hospital, near Earth Dome in Geneva. From what the docs told me, I must have fallen quite a distance. I had several broken bones, one rib had pierced the right lung and a major concussion. I was out for about one week."

Washuu and the girls flinched at Tenchis description of his injuries.

"They weren't able to find any ID or my DNA finger print in their data banks so they came up with the only right explanation, at least for them. I had to be one of the people living in one of the no-tech communities in Switzerland. Something like the Amish over in the States. I decided to stick with the story and told them that I wanted to remain in Geneva and than explore the world."

"That was very good thinking," Katsuhito said and Tenchi chuckled.

"Well, I haven't really regretted it. Through I have been near regretting it a few times."

He made a short pause and sighed deeply. Katsuhito raised an eyebrow.

"You had hard times, didn't you?"

"Yes," Tenchi continued," Earth Alliance through themselves to be quite invincible at that time. They had won a major war with the Dilgar a few years before, helping the League of Nonaligned Worlds. It made them quite arrogant."

He frowned.

"Some asshole had been able to get command of a ship and the command of a First Contact mission with a race the Centauri had talked about. The Minbari."

"There had been Minbari, Centauri and the League?" Ayeka asked surprised.

"From the information we got," _Dark Knight_ piped in," Most races of this reality exist in the Earth Alliance reality."

"Anyway, the asshole in command of the First Contact fleet send to the Minbari misunderstood the first greeting of the Minbari for an attack on his fleet and he shot at them. The Minbari ship was heavily damaged and it killed one of their leaders, Dukhat. It resulted in a bloody war between Earth Alliance and the Minbari Federation."

Tenchi sighed deep again and his eyes had a far away look.

"I got drafted into Earth Force and became a Starfury pilot. I've seen much action in the years of the Minbari war. And I've been one of the survivors of the Battle of the Line."

"Battle of the Line?" Ryoko asked.

"The last battle between Earth Force and the Minbari. The last capital Earth Force ships and about 20000 Starfuries against two hundred Minbari Sharlins and Nials. It ended when the Minbari capitulated to Earth Force even when they had the chance to glass Earth."

Everybody winced.

"It turned out that humans have Minbari souls and Minbari don't kill Minbari."

He closed his eyes.

"Two hundred Starfuries survived. I was one of them."

There was a silence in the room for several long seconds.

"After the war I entered Earth Force Academy and got into the fleet. Eventually I got my first command. An old Nova class Dreadnought that had survived the war, the _Neil Armstrong_."

Tenchi smiled a bit before his face turned dark.

"Than President Santiago was assassinated and Clarke came into power. He managed to make Earth Alliance into a police state that was much like Oceania in _1984 _or the Third Reich. About two years after Clarke came into power, several colonies and the space station Babylon 5 proclaimed independence after Mars was bombed for claiming independence themselves. Clarke used power to bring the colonies back under control. Babylon 5 remained independent with the help of the Minbari and the League. It was the beginning of the Earth Civil War."

"A single station fought a war?" Katsuhito asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well," Tenchi said," Babylon 5 got quite some help. There were some ships that had left Earth Force to follow Sheridan, like myself and the _Armstrong_, but most of the help came from the League and the Minbari. The war was fought some time, but in the end, our side won and Clarke killed himself like the coward he was. But he took some portions of Earth with him, programming the G.O.D. satellite network to fire at Earth as 'Scorched Earth' politics."

He sighed.

"The Interstellar Alliance was founded after that, Sheridan becoming President. Think of the Interstellar Alliance as sort of UN. I got another command, since the Armstrong was crippled during a fight in the Civil War. After that I got the command over the _Dark Knight_. She was a normal ship back than. It was only by chance that we picked up a derelict on a mission of EFNI, which assimilated itself into _Dark Knight_ and resulted in the new and improved _Dark Knight_."

"Thank you," the voice of _Dark Knight_ said happily.

"She bonded with me and the rest of the crew wasn't able to work on her, I don't really know why. In the end we came sort of a hidden trump card for Earth Force and eventually Dark Knight was forced to draw on me and the Tenchi-ken to create Light Hawk Wings and protect us. EFNI was suddenly very interested in me and I was forced to blow my cover."

He chuckled some.

"EFNI made several experiments, but in the end forced me away. I became some sort of freelancer with _Dark_ _Knight_ and met Setsuna on the way. In the end we were able to find a way back home."

"How much time went by for you," was Washuu's question.

"About 25 years."

"Sorry to interrupt you in the story," Dark Knight said," But the President of the United States is on line one and wants to talk to you. Video and Audio."

Tenchi raised an eyebrow and sighed. He blurred and was suddenly 25 years older.

"Patch him through."


	6. Chapter 6

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 5

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President Ryan closed his eyes for a moment before he turned towards the videophone that had been put up in the room. Another screen had been put up near the Joint Chiefs allowing them to see the same as the president. The phone itself was connected to a transceiver system of NASA, allowing them to talk to someone in space.

At the moment, the screen showed a symbol that consisted of the Latin letter 'E' and 'A' in gold and blue.

Than the screen changed, showing the face of a human, surprising Ryan. The man on the screen looked Asian and seemed to be in his mid forties. He had black hair and his eyes were of a strange violet color. The blue uniform he was wearing looked clearly military and the rank markings were golden in color.

Looking at the man on the screen Ryan instantly knew that he was more of a warrior than a soldier. That man had fought for his life and more and not only once, but multiple times.

Ryan smiled at the man on the screen who smiled slightly in response.

"I am Jack Ryan, President of the United States. I want to thank you for saving us from the ships that were shooting at our planet."

The man nodded.

"It was nothing you need to thank me for, Mr. President," the man said," It was the last thing I need for saving my home world."

'Home world', this word suddenly echoed through Ryan's mind. That man was from Earth? And he had this large space ship? Only a few hour ago he had learned that Aliens existed, than that Aliens were living in Japan for several centuries. And now they all had been rescued by someone claiming to be born on Earth.

"Home world?" asked one of the Joint Chiefs.

"Home world?" echoed Ryan looking very puzzled.

The man smiled gently.

"I am Commodore Tenchi Masaki, Commander of the Earth Alliance Advanced Destroyer _Dark Knight_," the man said in response," It is a longer story, sir. And I would like to tell it in a more private setting."

"What do you mean by that?"

The man smiled.

"I would like permission to enter Earth atmosphere and land at Andrews AFB, sir. From there I'm open to meet you everywhere."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Nathan carefully monitored the radio stream that came from the planet that was now called Earth by the descendants of the Ancients, his creators. He had also monitored the conversation between the captain of the ship that had rescued the planet and the President of the United States. He now knew the name of the ships captain and that of the ship itself.

Had he been able to smile, he would have done so. _Dark_ _Knight_ was a fitting name for such a ship.

He had done several long simulations since having seen the captain of the vessel. All of them were based on the information he had been able to get during the conversation. All of these simulations had shown him that the man could be trusted.

With a single command, he reduced the power of the event horizon shields that protected him form any form of scans. Everyone who scanned the moon now, would notice him and the large complex that was part of him.

Another command was given and the stasis fields on his hangars were lifted. They were large, but they were far from filled. Only twenty vessels had been saved by him, they may be of a much lower technology level than what the Ancients were capable of building, but each of those vessels was capable of holding itself against the _Dark_ _Knight_, at least for a time. All that was needed were a crew, but even that was only a matter of time, as he was more than able to teach a new crew in a short time.

As soon as he had reduced the power of the event horizon shields he noticed something else. Old sensory outposts were suddenly responding throughout the local galactic arm. But the number was small, just thirty outposts that only covered a very small portion of the space of the galactic arm. But he noticed something very disturbing.

A good number of Slipstream wakes were moving through the galaxy and several of them were vectoring in towards Earth, one of them was clearly the wake of Shadow vessels.

But he knew that he couldn't do more than wait here, wait until he was found by the _Dark_ _Knight_, before he could do anything. On the other side, he prepared. Weapons systems that were part of him went online, ready to strike when things got desperate, the only way for him to act without being hindered by the last commands of his creators.

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Tenchi smiled as he sat in one of the SA-32 Thunderbolt Starfury of _Dark Knight_. His hands danced over the controls to do the last pre flight system checks. It had been some time since he had flown a Starfury, but he had carefully watched to remain capable of flying a Starfury, even a Thunderbolt.

His family and friends were back in the Yagami as they wanted to go back to Earth themselves, even through they also wanted to get to Edwards.

The last checks were those of his flight suit, before he prepared to be ejected into space.

"_Dark_ _Knight_, I'm ready."

"Okay than, Commodore. Have fun with the Prez."

"I hope so."

The hangar door in front of him opened up, letting him look at the dark blue waters of the Pacific Ocean and Japan. He frowned a bit as he notices the Typhoon forming near Japan and briefly wondered if the storm would hit his homeland, creating an even greater mess than the Kinetic Strikes that had hit there. He briefly shook his head.

After a few moments, the rails holding the Starfury activated and the cats accelerated the Thunderbolt into space.

"Computer, course projection. Target Andrews Air Force Base."

"Affirmative," the voice of the computer said and a course projection was projected into his HUD.

He maneuvered the Starfury into a turn, before gunning the engines and shooting up towards the docking point where the _Yagami_ had docked. As he reached the area, the Galaxy Police ship had left the docking port and was moving away from his ship.

With the skill of thousands of hours in cockpit and dozens of dogfights in the Minbari war he maneuvered his Thunderbolt next to the bridge of the Patrol ship. He used the maneuvering jets to move even closer to the ship and than gave his friends and family, who looked at him very strangely, the thumbs up before gunning the engines and streaking towards Earth.

After a few minutes of flight, he entered the atmosphere over the Pacific, the Vorlon bio armor of the Starfury taking the heat of reentry without much problems.

He chuckled some as he imagines the look on the faces of the NORAD technicians seeing a small and a large contact entering atmosphere at high speeds. After several more moments _Yagami_ pulled up to him and they both shot over the Rocky Mountains at Mach five, towards Washington D.C.

About fifteen minutes later they dropped down to Mach one, allowing the Air Force to catch up to them, just ten minutes before landing. Four F-22 pulled up to them and guided them towards Andrews, where they touched down in nice vertical landings.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Setsuna sighed as she sat on the bridge of _Dark_ _Knight_. Tenchi had ordered her to remain aboard, in case the bad guys would come back. And G'Kar had decided to get aboard of _Yagami_ and get down to Earth with the others.

"Well, we are both very alone at the moment," Dark Knight said and it seemed like the ship was grinning.

Setsuna grinned in response and raised an eyebrow.

"What did you have in mind, _Knight_? Some fun to pass time?"

"Ayup."

Setsuna smiled and closed her eyes, as something happened. There was a short burst of light behind the captains chair, in which Setsuna sat.

"This doesn't look like a Vorlon ship," a very familiar voice said.

Setsuna's eyes shot open and she blinked a few times. Than she began to carefully scan the source of the very familiar voice, while turning around. As she looked at the person that had suddenly appeared in the ship, she blinked a few times.

"Well, I'm not really a Vorlon ship," _Dark_ _Knight_ said in a sugar sweet voice," At least not anymore."

Setsuna looked at herself, dressed in something that looked like a mix of a Japanese school uniform and a perverts wet dream. The careful surface scan Setsuna did, showed that the woman in front of her was her dimensional analog, Setsuna Meiou aka Sailor Pluto, who had used an artifact called Time Gate to come aboard _Dark_ _Knight_. And showed that she was really surprised about seeing herself in a black leather dress.

Setsuna carefully stood up and walked towards Pluto.

"Looks like there is a dimensional analog of me here."

"Who just happens to be a magical girl..." deadpanned _Dark_ _Knight_.

Pluto narrowed her eyes as she examined Setsuna.

"Who are you," she said, leveling her strange staff at Setsuna.

"I am Setsuna," Setsuna replied," I'm essentially you, just from another universe."

"Another universe?"

"Yep," Dark Knight said," Very much so."

Pluto's eyes narrowed further.

"The voice belongs to the ship?"

"Nice to know that the Guardian of the Time Gate doesn't step so low to talk directly to me," _Dark_ _Knight_ said with a tone that sounded like she was pouting.

"Where do you know that from."

Setsuna grinned in response.

"I'm a P-16, a telepath. Your thoughts are like an open book to me. And with my link to _Dark_ _Knight_. She knows what I know and let her know."

Pluto went white as a sheet and Setsuna grinned some more.

"I know all you dirty little secrets."

Than she shrugged.

"Well, at least the ones that aren't guarded by that block. It's a rather solid one. I could break it, but than you would be reduced to being a vegetable. And I couldn't let that nice body go to waste."

The still white Pluto took a step back.

"Say, _Knight_..."

"Yes?"

"Would it be considered masturbation if I have sex with her?"

Pluto stopped and stared at Setsuna. _Dark_ _Knight_ snorted.

"You got some really crazy ideas, Puu..."

"Well, it certainly isn't crazier that having a telepathic lesbian relation ship with a battleship."

Dark Knight giggled like a school girl.

"I certainly gives a whole new meaning to the expression 'mind fuck'."

With that Pluto fell over backwards.

"Knight, I guess you just broke her brain..."


	7. Chapter 7

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 6

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Tenchi, his friends, President Ryan and a good number of General were sitting in one of the conference rooms of Camp David. Tenchi had just finished telling the edited version of his personal history and now waited for the story to settle among the Generals and President Ryan.

"So what do you want now," Admiral Joshua Painter, CINCLANT, asked finally after two minutes.

Tenchi didn't smile, but he wanted this question to be asked.

"Well, Admiral," he said," I want to make sure that Earth remains safe."

He reached into a pocket and pulled a packet with several silvery disks from it. He placed them on the table.

"This are DVD's with informations about the situation in the galaxy," he continued," There is much data, all compressed and as PDF files, decompressed about one hundred gigabyte of information. I have gotten this information from a space station I defended, located at Wolf 359."

He made a short pause.

"There are much bigger fish in the galaxy. The Doranians, the invaders, are only one of many races that aren't exactly friendly towards lesser advanced races and on the other side they are in more or less the same situation as Earth compared to some of the more advanced races."

He than looked at Ayeka.

"Added to that is that Earth is located in a strategically important area of the galaxy, right between the Galactic Union and the Galactic Federation. Between the two major power blocks of the galaxy. Both are controlling about 35 percent of the Galaxy, with the rest being controlled by independent races and smaller power blocks, such as the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, the Centauri Republic or the Doranian Protectorate."

The Generals swallowed and his friends and Katsuhito looked at him surprised.

"The politic situation between the Union and the Federation is that of the US and the USSR before the Cuba Crisis at the moment. Its a powder keg waiting for the spark to detonate it. And if it detonates, it takes every civilization of the galaxy with it. Even Earth."

Ryan paled, as did the Generals.

"At the moment, we are already in this little conflict, as the Jurians, the people behind the Galactic Union, have Earth under a Protected Planets Treaty that is acknowledged by more or less everyone. At the moment, they don't care much about Earth, even..."

He shot a short glance at Katsuhito and Ayeka.

"... even if several of the Jurian Royal Family are currently on Earth. But analysis of the main computer of Dark Knight have shown that in case of a armed conflict between Union and Federation, Jurai would come to Earth, annex it and turn it into a garrison and fleet base, drafting humans into the Union Fleet."

He let his words set down and strike home, observing his grandfather and Ayeka from the corner of his eyes. Katsuhito's lips were a thin line, showing that Dark Knight was most likely correct and that he was behind Tenchi in this. Ayeka on the other hand looked about ready to explode at a moments notice, only her diplomatic training stopping her.

"I want to help preventing that, by helping Earth setting up a defense against that. It would need time to do so, much time, but it would give Earth a better chance, if we show that we don't need the Jurians to defend ourselves."

He again reached into his pocket, pulling another stack of DVD's from it and placing it next to the other.

"I can't do this alone. These DVD's contain technical data and information to build technology on Earth Force level with current level Earth technology. It also contains the blueprints for ships, fighters and weapons."

Than he looked at Washuu.

"I hope that Washuu helps us with adapting shield technology and Slipstream Drive to the blueprints, as well as having her subspace lab building the first Earth ships in the universe. It would give Earth a kick start straight to mid-level Quantum two technology."

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Tenchi sighed as he walked through the area surrounding Camp David. He had anticipated the reaction of the Joint Chiefs to his last proposal. They would bite themselves in their asses if they knew that he had already done so.

A small satellite was already orbiting Earth, connected to the Internet as a Public Domain Server with all information he had given to President Ryan and the Joint Chiefs. That way everyone had access to the information and the blueprints. There would also be a UN meeting in the next few days, where he would tell everyone about the Server, but he was sure that some Hackers had already found it and informed several news agencies.

"Tenchi!" he than heard the angry voice of Ayeka.

He stopped and turned around, seeing that Ayeka stomped towards him, her two guardians right behind her. He knew that she was angry and he knew that everyone in Camp David was observed by the Secret Service so Ryan would hear about the conversation that would follow now.

"What is it, Ayeka?" he asked, already knowing what she was about to say.

"How could you?" she asked glaring at him.

"How could I what?"

"Don't play with me," she snapped," You know what I'm talking about."

"Humor me," he said with a raised eyebrow.

He knew that she would be angry at him for a long time, but he needed this little angry conversation to drive his point home at Ryan, even if it meant that several little secrets would come to the surface.

"How can you impose Jurai like that? You are the Crown Price of Jurai!"

He crossed his arms over his chest, looking every bit the Commander of a space ship and the warrior he was.

"I guess that I was thrilled when I became the Crown Price. But now I want to be Crown Price as much as Yosho wants to be."

"It is your obligation to go to Jurai and give that ship of yours to..."

He stopped her before she could say anything further.

"Has Jurai ever done something for me that would warrant this 'Obligation'?"

"What?"

Ayeka looked at him shocked.

"I asked if Jurai ever did something for me that I would turn my ship over to them. I will tell you. Jurai never did something for me. Azuka would love to get his hands on Dark Knight and than, when he learns about the Doranian insurrection, he would send a fleet to Earth and integrate it 'back into the Empire'. For him Earth is just Colony 0315. He would do exactly what I told President Ryan."

Ayeka glared at Tenchi.

"Daddy wouldn't do something like that."

Tenchi raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, really? Can you be a hundred percent sure about that?"

Doubt played over Ayeka's face for a moment, before she straightened.

"Yes," she said firmly and Tenchi snorted.

"For someone who is a couple of centuries old, you are still pretty naive, Ayeka. Grow up."

Tenchi turned around and continued to walk.

"My only obligation is to Earth. I'm born here, I'm raised here, I'm more human than Jurian. I won't abandon my home, even if it meant to become the Emperor of one of the most powerful Empires in the galaxy."

He looked back at Ayeka for a moment.

"There are bigger fish in the pond than Jurai or the Minbari. And they are manipulating things from the background."

"How would you know," Ayeka jelled after him.

Tenchi breathed in deep.

"I just know. I have fought them."

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It screamed, as it tore through slipstream with high velocities. It and its brethren always seemed to scream when they passed other ships before they were blasted out of the universe. It didn't care much about what it was doing as it tore through the higher bands of slipstream, neither did it care about the wake it created behind itself as it did so. None of the younger races was able to resolve the slipstream wake of it anyway.

It only cared about getting to its target and doing the orders it had gotten from its commanders. It was to get to a backwater planet and cripple the ship that was guarding it, before getting back to its base. Maybe it would destroy a part of the backwater planet to leave its own mark on the planet, but first it had to do its job, than it could have some fun.

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The Kosh said nothing as he stood in his quarters of the _Black_ _Star_, one of the most powerful Minbari vessels in existence. He was the one that would be the first Kosh to see the unknown ship with his own senses. It looked eerily like a Vorlon ship, but it also bore a certain similarity to the vessels build by the Ancients.

He would have snorted, as his thought went to the Ancients. They had been fools. They should have sided with the Vorlons, but they chose to remain neutral in a war that didn't have any neutral party. They had been much more fools, because even during the Great War they had used ships that were far more primitive than any ship they could have build. But that had been the Ancients for you. They hadn't been like the Vorlons, or the Shadows for that matter.

They had chosen to pose as a race that was at a middle level Quantum Two technology, when dealing with the younger races. They also never had tried to bring anything like order to them, or chaos for that matter. For them only other things had been their driving force. Knowledge, art, mostly thing that weren't of matter. They had acted like one of the younger races, not like the First Ones they were. In the end it had been their downfall.

The Kosh turned the head of his encounter suit towards the air lock leading into his cabin. It was still several hour until the Minbari fleet would enter the Juraian protected system, than he would know about that ship and it would cease to exist as a threat to the Vorlons.

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Dukhat sighed as he sat meditating in his cabin. He was trying to free his head, his mind for the things to come, but his thought always came back to the unknown ship that had destroyed four Doranian ships without even trying, not protected by any form of shielding.

Later the members of the religious caste that were on that station where the battle had happened, had send a message, showing that the ship was heading towards a small planet, that was called Earth by its inhabitants, but called Colony 0315 by the Jurians.

He knew that the Kosh aboard the Black Star wanted the ships to be destroyed, but Dukhat didn't really want to fight that ship at all. If that ship turned out to be in league with the Juraians, its destruction could cause the time bomb of the galacto-political situation to explode. The warriors caste was ready to fight, as were the more militaristic races of the Galactic Federation, but Dukhat doubted that the rest was ready for a war.

And the area they were heading now was vital to any war effort against the Jurians. It would hinder any form of logistics in this area of space.

He sighed again.

"May Valen help us all if it comes to war."

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Ryuji Kisuragi slowly walked through the small par on the upper part of the _Throne_, the prime vessel of the Juraian fleet. The ship was currently heading towards Colony 0315, a primitive backwater planet that was part of the Juraian Protected Planets Treaty. Currently the Princesses Ayeka and Sasami were stying there, as well as Prince Yosho and the new Crown Prince Tenchi. And the Emperor and his wives wanted to go there for a visit.

"Yes, I know," he said to seemingly empty air, but he was talking to the invisible arachnid beings that were part of his life since he had landed his small explorer on a planet that was called Za'ha'dum by most races, a place that spoke of ancient terror.

Ryuji hadn't found terror, instead he had found friends, a family and the chance to get into power. Now he was in a position of power. For some people his position a logistics expert in the entourage of the Emperor wouldn't seem like much, but he had the kind power he wanted and the kind of power his family wanted him to have. He was invisible behind the curtains of power, but he was able to influence everyone.

And now he had his chance. A chance to be rewarded by his family. It would also bring him a bit more power, but that wasn't important, only the reward of his family was of importance for him. He had planned it very carefully.

The Prince and the Crown Prince would die on the planet called Earth by weapons of the Minbari. He had gotten his hands on Minbari weapons and two assassins that were from races of the Federation. It would all lead to the Minbari.

The assassination would destabilize the Empire, make the diplomatic situation even more of a minefield and maybe even start the war that was slowly building up.

"It will work," he assured the two members of his family, before nodding at one of the servants that were working in the small park.

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Washuu was sitting on a large couch in one of the rooms of Camp David, looking out of the large window plane and at the surrounding area. Her virtual desktop was floating next to her, but at the moment, running several longer simulations, so Washuu had time to think.

What Tenchi said had stuck home with her. She may have been in a stasis for a long time, but she had been conscious enough to hear Kagato when he dragged about his plans in front of his old teacher. She knew much about the political situation and how Kagato had planned to disrupt it after getting Ryoko back.

At first she hadn't wanted to help, but as she continued to think, she had discovered something about herself. She may not have wanted to admit it, but she liked the humans on Earth. They were different to any other humanoid race in the galaxy.

They lacked the pompous arrogance of the Jurians, they loved to discover new things, find out how the universe worked. Where most other races of the galaxy still didn't know that sub-atomic particles like Quarks or Gluons existed, the humans had done the research to find out about their existence. Some of the races didn't even know that mass had a direct influence on space, the humans had the experimental proof, done with their own primitive technology.

Humans did things that other races didn't. They were looking behind the things, tried to understand how they worked, not just being glad that things worked at all. They had managed to get from combustion engines for planes to jet engines in less than forty years, whereas other races needed more than 150 years for the same. They went from powered flight to spaceflight in sixty years, where other races needed two hundred years and more.

As she continued to think about the humans of Earth, she discovered that she had a deep love for them. She didn't exactly understand where this love for this race and their home planet came from, but she knew it was there, coming from deep within her soul.

She closed her eyes for a moment. Until her virtual desktop made a noise, showing that it had finished with the simulations. As she looked at the printout on the screen, she frowned. She had scanned the DVD's Tenchi had given President Ryan, before he had given them to the CIA and the NSA for analysis, and run the information through the simulations.

Everything Tenchi had said was essentially true. In more than a thousand runs of the simulations, going through multiple different scenarios, it had always come down to one fact. Earth was to be the fighters for either the Federation or the Union in the end, maybe even destroyed during the initial fights over this sector of space.

Washuu breathed in deep and pulled up the blueprints of two different ship designs from the DVD's. She would help Earth. She just couldn't let Earth be defenseless. But she also couldn't really totally say yes to Tenchis plans. Earth couldn't go out in the open and just hope to have enough time.

She needed to talk to Tenchi and persuade him to help arm Earth in secret. Build a secret base on the moon or something. Nothing that could show everyone else that there was a new player around the block.

She smiled a bit as she looked over the designs of the Monsoon gunboat and the Lupo escort cruiser. They were works of brilliant engineers. They lacked the stuff other races often put into their spaceships, being an utterly ulitarian design only build to do its job. She was pretty sure that a Monsoon could take on a Doranian cruiser even without shields. It would be a pleasure to add shields and exchange these Jump engines with Slipstream drives.

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Commander Tar Molari, nephew of the Ambassador to the League of Non-Aligned Worlds Londo Molari, frowned as he looked at the video yet again. He was to capture that ship and invade the planet called Earth.

He breathed in deep and closed his eyes for a moment. It would be a tough job to fight that monstrous ship. Even with the two Primus in his fleet. But the fact that the system, the unknown ship was jumping to was a Juraian protected system, made him a bit nervous.

Even with this little problems he was sure that he would win. And if he didn't... Well the Emperor wouldn't be very happy about it. Catagia may be a little strange, but he was the Emperor and he was the one who brought the Centauri Republic back to its former glory.

And this ship would bring the Centauri up into the Quantum Three technology level, something the Centauri wanted ever since Kagato and Ryoko had razed over the Galaxy and destroyed a good portion of the Republic in their wake.

"I will get this ship," he muttered and looked at the screen in front of him, again playing the scene where the unknown ship had destroyed the Doranian Cruisers," For the Empire."

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Pluto stood still for a few moments and listened. The sound of the other Senshi was muffled by the walls, but they were there. Nodding to herself she decided to finish this as quickly as possible.

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"Sigh, Minako, it can't be a beautiful prince that wants a princess." Ami tried to reason to the over enthusiastic blond, "And no Haruka, we don't know it is an enemy so don't go off and make them an enemy when they could be friendly."

Hotaru was glad Ami was telling them this because she didn't think they would take her seriously… well, until she made it clear to them that she has had enough of that way of thinking. It also prevented her from having to decide which contractor in the greater Tokyo area, which Haruka-papa hadn't pissed off yet, to rebuild their house.

Minako stayed lost in thought about a handsome prince coming down to marry her, which was very similar to Makoto's thoughts on the subject naturally. Rei was trying for a Fire Reading, while making sure Usagi didn't sneak off to get 'HER' manga. Usagi mean while, was trying to figure out how to distract Rei from watching her so she could 'get' to the manga.

Michiru was wondering if tying Haruka down would help… to keep her out of trouble of course, nothing else was on her mind, no, of course not… well…

Really the only one paying attention was Haruka when Pluto walked in. Ami and Hotaru were too busy with the speech Ami was giving to notice at first. If the others had seen the Pluto that had just walked in the door, they too would have stared. This wasn't the serious Pluto they all knew. First of all, she wasn't wearing a fuku, which considering the second was a good thing. After all very, very few women look good in a fuku when they're slightly over 6 months pregnant.

Pluto timed their reaction and Minako was the last one to notice her. A minute and 30 seconds, not bad, but not great. She was hoping to be noticed a bit faster; perhaps she should have worn a thong? Glancing at her watch again she noticed it was thirty seconds later, a thong although might be taking it just a bit too far, she wanted them to notice her, not faint.

Glancing once again at her watch, noting another 30 seconds had passed. Pluto walked over to her old place and sat down, carefully of course, being a Senshi didn't help negate pregnancy… much. Sighing as she looked around, she wondered how much longer this would last. Shrugging as she reached behind her into her subspace pocket pulling out what looked like an advanced storage container and Celery? Popping open the container, which was filled with peanut butter, Pluto started to satisfy her craving and waited.

About a minute later Hotaru was the first to snap out of her trance. She carefully walked over to Pluto and asked the simplest question she could. "Setsuna-mama? What happened?"

Making a great deal over it, Pluto put her snack food down carefully, and lifted a finger to her lips in a thinking pose. "Well, I got screwed. Found out I missed my period and wound up like this." Having answered the question Pluto went back to her snack as she waited for the second shock to wear off.

Ami asked the second question as it seemed Hotaru was having trouble with the last answer, Hotaru did live with Setsuna and knew her better than the Inner Senshi did, which made this even stranger to her. "Who and when?"

Pluto just turned her head over to look at what might have been the smartest in the group, except for that last question had her wondering. "When?" asked Pluto, glancing down at her belly and back up to Ami, "I think you can guess given the natural progression of pregnancy. As for who, I'm not telling yet. Just don't attack the ship in orbit;" glancing at Haruka, "they are not our enemies. Although that doesn't everyone else coming are friendly."

Standing up Pluto said, "Don't worry if my current-time counter part doesn't return for a while, she/I am safe." Taking another bit from her snack the future-Pluto looked at Usagi, "Things aren't going as I foresaw, but their not that bad. Although, these cravings are certainly annoying." As she finished up the last of the Celery, future-Pluto reached behind her back once again and pulled out a carrot to go with the peanut butter.

Waving the half consumed carrot, she turned around and walked away for a few moment before disappearing in a flash of light. Leaving behind a very confused set of Senshi and a large base on the moon, that scratched his metaphorical head over the strange temporal readings from the Tokyo area.

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In orbit, on the Dark Knight, Setsuna was finding another use for all that spare leather she had stockpiled on board. Well, she was going to a place that wasn't close to any of her regular leather suppliers. Without a place to get exactly matching leather for replacement parts to her outfit she ordered a little to ensure that wasn't a problem. She had to admit although; 5 tons of black leather (of various shapes and sizes) and assorted fasteners showing up might have been slightly surprising to those outside of the ship.

Tightening the last knot, Setsuna looked down at Pluto. True, tying her up with leather was a bit strange for those without experience. It was harder to untie a knot than it was to disable or trigger the release of the electronic hand cuffs. Simple fasteners wouldn't work either because a mental tug on the strap, plus a lifting of the fastener and they were free. With knots and such it took a lot longer to get free giving the captor more time to stop them.


	8. Chapter 8

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 7

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This time it were only Tenchi and Washuu, who met with President Ryan. When Tenchi refused to answer who he had fought and his general behavior towards her, Ryoko and Katsuhito had been forced to prevent her from straggling him. So everyone else was currently trying to get Ayeka to coll off.

"Well, Mr. President," Washuu said," Commodore Masaki's plan of arming Earth to give this planet a better chance to survive the upcoming war is..."

She was interrupted by Ryan.

"Upcoming war, Miss Washuu?" he asked," You mean the war between this Federation and this Union will happen?"

Washuu frowned a bit at hearing 'Miss Washuu', but decided it would be best if she let it slide, considering that she was to help Ryan and Earth. Kappafying the President of the United States, would only make it more of a problem as it was already. She let a holographic several holographic screens appear over the table, each of them showing one of the simulations she made.

"It's not a question if the war happens. Its a question when the war happens. It's like the Cold War here on Earth, just on a much larger scale. The only thing that would prevent the war would be that one of the two parties collapses politically, much like the Soviet Union here on Earth ended the Cold War."

Ryan grit his teeth. This was getting worse by the minute. First an alien Invasion, now a galactic war with mankind right in the middle. And the best thing was that he couldn't do anything, save for arming Earth to fight for their own in the war. As he continued to confer with this Washuu, he had more and more the feeling that she was older than she looked. Much older.

"As I tried to say," Washuu continued," Commodore Masaki's plan is the right thing for Earth to do. There are just one or two little problems."

Tenchi raised an eyebrow.

"Problems?"

"Earth is still a planet under the Protected Planet Treaty. The space traffic already happening is the maximum the Treaty allows. More and Earth falls right out of the Treaty. And if Earth is not protected by the Treaty anymore, it open for invasion from any power that would like to add a new planet to their Empire, Republic, whatever. It's even worse if Earth suddenly develops its own Quantum Two technology, as the Earth Force tech would be rated. The armament would have to be done in secret. And a building fleet needs a base to hide from the prying eye until Earth is ready for defending itself against a large invasion fleet and in the war."

Tenchi and Ryan nodded nearly in unison.

"What are you suggesting?" Ryan asked.

"Commodore Masaki knows about the fact that I have a very large laboratory, hidden in subspace."

Ryan and his advisors and Generals looked at Washuu in a strange way.

"I also have several slips for building experimental craft in my lab. I am able to manufacture a few spaceships for an Earth Defense Force until Earth starts to build the ship on its own."

She made a short pause.

"I have scanned the Disks, Commodore Masaki gave you and got the data from them. I have looked at some of the spaceship designs and already modified two of the designs by adding a Level Two Quantum Slipstream Drive, a Quantum Two level energy shield, a stealth device and additional ECM and ECCM equipment. Everything on the same Quantum Two sub level as the ships themselves. Five of the ships are already in construction and will be finished in about a week."

No one said anything for a few moments.

"So basically you are setting us stone age primitives up with a bunch of nuclear powered aircraft carriers," one of the Generals said.

Washu and Tenchi chuckled.

"Nice analogue," Washuu said with a smile," But essentially, yes."

"I guess you also have something to help us in the personal area?" Ryan asked and Washuu nodded.

"I developed a few speed teaching technologies. RNA sequence memory transfer, Direct Electrical Discharge Schooling... Yes, I can teach your men how to handle the new technology in a few days, at least theoretically. Another problem is that the knowledge how to do something will only surface when they try to use the knowledge. They wouldn't know that they even have the knowledge until they use it."

Ryan looked at his men and women.

"I have to confer with the Joint Chiefs about..."

He stopped blinking as Tenchi suddenly did a spit take as he just drank some water. He blushed a very deep red, closed his eyes while setting the glass down with shaking hands. Washuu on the other hand had a good view on Tenchi and she could see the tent, that suddenly came into existence in Tenchi's pants.

"E... excuse me," Tenchi said tried to shake his head clear, while standing up and leaving the room in a hurry.

The occupants in the room blinked at his sudden disappearance and some Generals were looking at each other questioningly.

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In Virtual Reality, the humanoid virtual form of Dark Knight sat in front of a large wall of screens, each showing different images from the action going on in Setsuna's cabin, drooling slightly, while taking part in the action over their link. But still...

"I want some action myself!" she wailed," I need to ask Washuu if she can get me an avatar body."

But even as she watched the action going on, she didn't neglected her duties, constantly scanning the surrounding space for anything out of the ordinary. A few moments after Setsuna had gotten past the first part of Pluto's mind barrier and that strange burst of coding and technomagic going through her system twice, she noted slight changes in the alignment of her sensors and a slightly higher effectivity of her gravimetric drives.

Part of her still watching and drooling over the action between Setsuna and Pluto, another part slowly noted all the changes made in her by the burst coming from Pluto.

"Nice stuff," she said to herself," Hard to belive that even Vorlon technology can be working better."

Than she blinked a few times at some of the data her newly more effective sensors put out. There was something going on on the moon. Some sort of anomaly in the Tycho Crater.

"Very omnious," she noted and started to work her way through the data," If it turns out to be a magnetic anomaly, I start to scream."

Yes, Dark Knight had a certain love for old 20th century SciFi. In the end the anomaly turned out to be gravimetrical, a high amount of somehow shielded gravity, bending the local strings in that area.

Dark Knight opted for getting more information about the anomaly and launched a scout drone to take a closer look at the Tycho Crater.

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Nathan noted the slight change in the effectivity of Dark Knights sensors and most of her other systems, shortly after a burst of Ancient technomagic, coming from a device created by the technomages around Serenity, the Garment Rod. Internally he went through the information he had about the device and its implications.

If a device like the Garent Rod and one of the talismans were active on Earth, it would mean that at least one of Serenity's Senshi had survived and still lived, most likely Tsuka Mou aka 'Sailor Pluto' . She was known to him as one of the few technomages mastering temporal magic nearly completely. It would also explain, why he never sensed any form of technomagic use before, besides the explosion in Antarcita and the strange happenings about a year ago, before the ships had started to show up.

Than he noted something curious at accessing the earthern Internet out of routine. A new public domain server that contained very detailed information about the Galaxy and a new technology base for free access. Everything in a way that it could be understood and build with current Earth technologies.

The most curious about it was the fact that the server was in orbit around Earth and linked to several very high speed up/downlinks on various other satellites and receiver station on Earth. The orbit of the satellite corresponded with the orbit of Dark Knight, so that the ship had most likely set out the server.

After a few tries Nathan found a way to access the server directly over a high speed tachyon link, something that would allow Dark Knight to access it. Nathan didn't try to crack the server, he simply used the tachyon link to download the entire 150GB data of the server into his system to take a a look at it.

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Dark Knight blinked again for a few times in her virtual reality. Someone had just downloaded the entire data of her orbital PHP based Public Domain Server over the tachyon link. All 150GB of data in less than ten seconds. And the receiver of that link was sitting somewhere in the Tycho Crater on the Moon.

"Okay, buster. I'll find out who you are."

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President Ryan sat in another conference room, together with his advisors, the Joint Chiefs and a newly arrived John Clark, who had been in Washington to visit an old friend when the aliens attacked. At the moment, Rainbow could run itself.

"What was the best idea we had for planetary defense before Dark Knight showed up," Mark Jonson, Ryans technological advisor, asked.

The Joint Cheifs were silent at the moment.

"Nukes," Clark bluntly said," Just that they didn't worked all that well against those City Destroyers."

Jonson nodded.

"Exactly, the maximum that we could have used are nukes and maybe, a big maybe, a spaceship with an Orion drive."

"Like the battleship Michael from Niven's Foofall."

Jonson blinked a few times at the Presidents reference, who smiled in response.

"My son read the book when he was in High School. I couldn't help but pick it up and read it myself a few times."

Jonson nodded.

"Well, actually that is a good reference. Big blocky battleship build in a dessert and launched with nukes blowing up under them. That were the best option we had for preventing an alien invasion."

Jonson than held up one of the disks from Tenchi.

"This on the other side, gives us much more to work with."

"That SciFi nonsense?" one of the Joint Chiefs said," We don't even know if it works."

Jonson raised an eyebrow. Before he became the technological advisor of the President, he had been working at as triple Master at Berkley, thinking up new technologies himself. He worked with his laptop for a moment and one of the big screens in the room come into life, showing one of the spaceship designs, with the headline 'Monsoon'.

"I looked up some of the designs. It's easy stuff to build, even with our current technology base. Hell, we could have been able to build those ships back in the eighties. We can build them."

"But we need to get into orbit for doing it," another General said.

"Not necessarily," Jonson answered," The more advanced designs have to be build in orbit, but the 'Monsoon' can be build down here on Earth. And from what I know about the design until now, those ships may be small, but pack one hell of a punch."

"And building them will cost trillions of dollars..."

"No."

Everyone blinked at Jonson's cool answer.

"No?"

"No. All we need to do is put some money into already existing infrastructure in Norfolk and San Diego, about 15 to 20 billion dollar each. It will give us the ability to build the 'Monsoon' class for about 20 billion dollar a piece in about one year each and about two or three at both locations."

There was a short silence in the room.

"So we can build some pocket ships," Ryan said," compared to the other designs."

"Well, that is a small problem. But we can modify one or two of the Monsoons to be used as bulk freighters, capable of getting material into orbit to build an orbital dock yard to build bigger ships."

He made a short pause.

"We have the potential to use these plans. We just need to use them."

Ryan leaned back in his chair. Aside from Masaki's sudden problems in the conference before, he seemed to be a man he could trust- But still, he needed to wait for the analysis of his data by CIA and NSA. Other than that...

"Okay, I want you to make the needed plans to pull this off as fast as possible, after we get the green light from Congress and Senate, Jonson. That will be all for now."

There was a murmur in the room and some of the Joint Chiefs wanted to talk to Ryan, but he stood up and went straight towards Clark.

"I want to talk to you."

Clark nodded and followed Ryan into his personal office in Camp David. After the door closed behind the two, Ryan sat down behind his desk and looked at Clark.

"I need you, John."

Clark raised an eyebrow.

"And for what?"

"I need you to be a sort of liaison officer. I want you to meet with Masaki and look over his shoulder for the next time. If he goes to his ship, you will go with him."

"And Rainbow?"

"I guess they have to go without you for some time."

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Ryoko just sat in a tree thinking about the future and Tenchi. Tenchi… Tenchi had changed drastically from what she saw. He was much more confident, part of her had cheered when he stood up against the princess. At the same time that action had changed the entire outlook of their possible future relationship.

Most would dismiss her mother as a non-important aspect of Ryoko's make up, but Ryoko did inherit her mother's brains. Even if she didn't show it much. The changes in Tenchi meant that she couldn't hope to play on his nativity or his inexperience in other matters. Not that she herself was that experienced in such matters, but that topic used to be relegated to the side lines in the past.

Sitting in the tree, Ryoko thought about the future she had… left… 'Sigh,' it wasn't much really, Earth was the only planet that didn't have a warrant out for her. Sure the GP may have rescinded their warrant for her arrest, for the moment at least. Since the time limitations clause had run out, but that could be quickly changed with a law or two.

The individual powers and groups in the Galaxy didn't have that problem. If she set foot on one of those planets or outside the protective sphere around Earth, you could be sure her freedom was a very time limited asset. The fact that Ryo-oki wouldn't leave her only carrot supply was a secondary consideration. Sighing again, Ryoko plopped against the trunk of the tree and wondered just how she could fix this mess.

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Yosho was strolling though the camp, with many Secret Service personal watching him no doubt. Tenchi had finally grown up, even if what forced him to grow up was horrible. He had done so while facing wars on a scale the Galaxy probably hadn't seen in millennium at the very least. He was proud of Tenchi, although Ayeka felt very different and was extremely mad at Tenchi to say the very least.

She was mad about the fact that he was going against Juria, mad at him for giving Earth the means to defend itself, and mad that he not only knew what was occurring in the Galaxy, but had decided that he didn't like it to the point that he was going to try and change it.

Ayeka had a very strong sense of the internal workings of Juria that was certain, but she didn't have a clue about the external forces outside of Juria. After chasing Ryoko, he had seen those forces and saw that Jurai wasn't as powerful as it perceived, Ayeka didn't want to believe what she seen about life outside of Jurai.

Sasami was perhaps taking this the best; she didn't have time on Jurai to become unshakeable in her conviction of everything Juraian. Her time here on Earth had degraded those convictions of Jurai that had been solidifying before she had sneaked her way onto her sister's ship. To Sasami, Tenchi had just grown up into a true, big brother. He was more confident and knowledgeable then before, while being entirely better for it. She was trying to help Ryoko, but Ryoko needed time to think this out for herself. So as Yosho walked along the path in Camp David, he soothed his mind with small problems.

"Your belt buckle is shining." Yosho said in passing to a bush, which then cursed slightly at the slip up.

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If someone had looked, they would have wondered were a certain blond went.

She was currently in a large dark room looking for Tenchi. "Ummm… Hello? Tenchi, are you here?"

Nathan just blinked just as only he could, while Mihoshi walked though the room and seemed to disappear. From a corner of his mind a phrase from his creators' goddess came forth, 'Somehow, were ever you go there will always be some ditzy blond that screws up your experiment at the worst possible time.' In the same corner of the base, one of Nathan's remotes received a command and carried it out.

Clapping its hands three times and rubbing them together it said through its speakers. "Most Ominous."

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After closing the door to the toilet stall, Tenchi sat down on the stool and loosened his shirt's collar. Taking a deep breath he wondered just what was going on with the two in orbit, it was usually much worse than this.

Sighing, he closed his eyes and tried to block out the feelings. A few seconds later he heard something crackle close by. Ignoring the sound Tenchi tried to keep the feelings blocked until he smelled smoke. Opening his eyes he found himself in a room with a fireplace and a large bed.

Thousands of half formed thoughts went through his head, but the only one that made it out was the simplest. "Umm… Hello?"

The giggling caught his attention and then the sight of were the giggling was coming from held his attention.

Standing on what looked to be another bed set into a raised platform was a girl. Said girl had a shapely athletic body. Black hair with red highlights that fell down to just short of her shapely rear, brown eyes with what could be described as black droplets surrounding the eyes with the droplets set on their side curving away from the edge of the bridge on the nose and coming to a point just shy of the hairline with a white line running just inside the edge of the droplet enhancing the look. Rounding out the girl was a set of high set check bones, lushes red lips, and high set breasts that looked to be about a handful each. To sum it up, a body that a normal man would die for…

Of course this was Tenchi, although that just meant he was having trouble thinking much beyond the normal train of thought that a man thought when faced by a naked girl like this. The only additions being, 'who was this girl?'

The girl just grinned at Tenchi as she made her way over to him. Making sure to swing her hips slightly, after all he is cute when flustered. Straddling his lap as she faced him the girl licked up the front of his face and seemed to get ready to do something else. This was were Tenchi found is voice. "WH… Who are you?"

Pouting at having to stop the girl sighed and looked at Tenchi. "Who do you think besides Setsuna has a bond with you?" Wrapping her arms around him the girl looked at Tenchi expectantly.

"…Whaaa… But you can't be… …What about Setsuna?"

Dark Knight cast a mournful look at Tenchi, "Sniff, she found her counter-part in this dimension and this was just as we were getting ready. She left me expectant and then feeling her having sex over the bond just like you were. I tell you its inhuman!" Dark Knight didn't seem to care that she wasn't human either as she said this, but Tenchi wasn't going to say anything with her VR image infront of him.

As one part of his mind continued to stare at the VR image of Dark Knight sitting on his lap, another part acknowledged that this situation wasn't unknown, but it was usually Setsuna who cornered him. Which was usually on one of the infrequent planetary visits, he never had been on Dark Knight for long without Setsuna, but that didn't explain how she was able to bring him into VR outside the ship.

"I thought you only did this with Setsuna?" Tenchi's conscience wouldn't allow him to go on without at least giving a token effort at stopping this, granted, nothing more than a token effort, he still felt Setsuna's efforts though the bond. "And how did I get here?" That was the more interesting question, although its importance was fading fast due to another area that was harding fast.

"We already talked about it after she admitted to using you as a stand-in before. You're fair game buddy!" Dark Knight shifted about slightly and obviously on Tenchi while grinning at him.

"Setsuna and I just usually prefer each other. Sorry Captain, but you're second place in the group. Do you want us to work you 'in' more often?" Still grinning as she rubbed in the thinly veiled comment Dark Knight continued. "As for how? You know I have to maintain a constant connection to you because of our bond?"

Tenchi nodded at this even although this conversation was getting less and less important. The faster she finished the faster other things could be started.

"Well the Vorlons have evolved so that they don't need help to maintain the connection. They do have their exo-suits provide a boosting function for long ranges. When I bonded to you, I inserted about 10 implants the size of pin heads into you. You remember that right?"

Nodding again, Tenchi hopped she would finish fast. Her grinding was getting madding and she knew it!

"Normally those implants can't do much off the ship because of their power requirements and small size. The 'Earth Alliance' badge you wear is just a thin coating of metal over a organic construct which I usually use to monitor the area around you. But since I don't have to worry much about the area around you, I had it instead switch to boosting the bond between us."

"So this is what you look like in VR when you're with Setsuna."

Finishing unbuckling his pants, Dark Knight looked back up at him as she looped her arms around his neck again. "Nope, I designed this body just for you. That," nodding behind Tenchi, "is what I look like when Setsuna and I are in this situation."

Craning his head to look behind him, Tenchi caught sight of another girl. One look at the girl and you knew she wasn't human. True, the untamed flaming red hair and red eyes were fairly normal, but the horns curling from her forehead over the top of her head towards the back of her skull didn't leave room for dough. If any one needed more evidence besides the horns that slightly tamed her hair, they could point to the slightly pointed ears.

Showing off her assets the cream white leather outfit was slightly less skin tight than Setsuna's outfit, which meant that only parts of the outfit were skin tight. Not that you could really tell right now with her pants lying on the floor behind her. While her top/jacket was completely unbuttoned showing a strip of skin from her chest to her stomach, while just providing the hint of her breasts as a small portion of them peeked out and curved back under the jacket. Not as high set on her chest as the other avatar, they did seem to be almost inviting him to feel them.

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Later, Dark Knight decided to see if Setsuna wasn't up for a threesome, err… foursome, every once in a while with Tenchi. He was good and tasty, but she preferred Setsuna to him, or at least half of her did, the specially designed avatar for Tenchi was still questioning who it preferred.

A stray thought crossed her mind, '… hmmm, Tenchi in Setsuna… tasty.' Drooling slightly at the thought, another part of her set to work on the sample she had gotten from Tenchi. Allowing the part of her below Tenchi's pants to consume the sample for extra mass and increasing that part of her's mass by 75.

Leaving that part were it was for now, Dark Knight used the remaining material from his badge to reform its shape to what it was before. Leaving the badge with its newly chosen functions intact and running. She didn't know how long it would take Setsuna to stop playing with her counter-part, besides she could multitask this function with pleasure. Grinning the other parts of her went upon their normal duties with what could be described as a hop and skip.

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Later, back in the VR room T-avatar ran her hand down her leg and saw two Hanko symbols light up. First and largest was Tenchi's hanko in red covering the entire width of her leg with an image of Setsuna's hanko just below Tenchi's. Only Setsuna's was only about twice as large as a normal hanko seal and in black instead of the red of Tenchi's.

Walking over to S-avatar, she ran her hand down the other avatar's leg. Seeing an image of Setsuna's hanko about the same size Tenchi's was on her leg, but in black not red. She nodded her head and then cocked it to one side as Tenchi's hanko showed up below Setsuna's, much bigger than the corresponding hanko on her leg. The secondary hanko on S-avatar's leg was about half the size of the main hanko.

Smirking T-avatar stood up while she thought about the large secondary hanko. It was most likely because while the avatar liked Setsuna the most, Tenchi was still the first to be bonded and was the captain. Not mentioning the fact that the avatar was designed for Setsuna and reflected her to a certain extent.

Dark Knight marked down the recorded VR session with Tenchi and inserted it into the library only she, Setsuna, and Tenchi could access. Putting it along side the other recording made with Setsuna and Pluto earlier that hour. A satisfied Dark Knight went about her work with a grin that could have split her face. 


	9. Chapter 9

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 8

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As Tenchi left the toilet, he had to fight a bit not to have this certain 'I just got laid' air around him. But since he had been an officer for a good amount of time, so it wasn't really that much of a problem. But there was the slight possibility that someone, who was good in reading people, would still see that something happened that left a certain glow around him.

As he followed the soldier back to the conference room, a little part of his mind wondered why there weren't any 'marks' on his pants. He shook his head clear as he entered the room. The President, his aids and the Generals were looking at him as he entered.

He made his way towards his seat, next to Washuu, and noted a new face. An elder man who looked like he had seen at least, if not more, action than Tenchi himself.

"We have come up with a few plans, while you were away, Commodore," President Ryan said after a moment, shaking every thought of what just happened in VR out of Tenchi," If Senate and Congress are giving us green light, we can start to build ships on our own in about a month or two. Miss Washuu provided us with the plans for an atmosphere capable Monsoon with shields and slipstream drive, as well as a bulk transport version of the Monsoon to build large structures in space."

Tenchi nodded a few times, while noticing a strange knowing grin on the face of the unknown man.

"I also talked to UN Secretary General about a full scale UN meeting," Ryan added, while getting annoyed glances from several of his Generals," It will be held in three days. This is a number to big for just the United States. We need the whole planet to pull this off."

Tenchi smiled.

"Actually," he said," That would have been my next request, Mr. President. Through I would have only requested a meeting of the UN Security Council."

Ryan nodded and than looked at the unknown man.

"I would like to have a sort of liaison officer between the United States and you, Commodore," Ryan said," This is Brigadier John Clark. I want him to be this liaison officer."

Tenchi merely raised an eyebrow, while chuckling inside. With Clark aboard, he would have to hide his Tom Clancy collection.

"I hope you won't throw up on our way into space, General," Tenchi said with a chuckle.

Clark gave him a slight grin.

"I will try not to."

Tenchi looked back at Ryan.

"There is also another request I want to make. _Dark_ _Knight_ has a very advanced autonomous system that controls everything aboard."

"Meaning?" a General asked.

"_Dark_ _Knight_ doesn't have a crew," Tenchi just stated," aside from myself and my, uhm... Second in Command. But I have about 48 Thunderbolt Starfuries, without pilots."

Realization dawned in the faces of the various Generals and that of Ryan.

"So you need pilots," Clark noted.

"Pilots and weapons officers. With Washuu-chan's speed teaching systems, I would be able to get them into the Starfuries and space in less than a week. They would still need experience after that, but at least the fighters wouldn't just sit in the hangar anymore."

Tenchi looked over at Washuu.

"I guess she would also like to add some systems to the Starfuries to make them a little more of a threat to capital ships."

Washuu looked at Tenchi for a moment, before summoning her translucent computer and pulling up the data on the Thunderbolt Starfuries.

"Well," she said after a moment," It won't be much of a challenge to add a fusion reactor, a shield generator and make the hard points compatible to several of my more... eccentric missile weapons."

She fidgeted a little at the last part, before muttering something about stopping to watch SciFi channel and 'photon torpedos'.

"Fighters," she than continued," could be the one big advantage Earth has in this."

The Generals and Ryan perked up.

"How so?"

Washuu smiled a little.

"Fighters are almost unknown in the galaxy," Washuu noted," There are not many races that are using them. And most of those who do, aren't using very advanced types. Like the Kinetic Kill Vehicles _Dark Knight _used to destroy the Doranian Cruisers, fighters are considered obsolete. And we have seen what a KKV can do to a shielded ship."

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Hidden by Ancient Event Horizon Shields on the ninth planet of the Sol system, the Time Gate, a device build for showing possible time lines by the 'Silver Millenium' faction of the Ancient Alliance, went through a standard program. It showed a recent shift in the possibilities of occuring events in the future.

At the moment, it showed the old time line. The great crystal pillars of Crystal Tokyo pointed proud into the sky, even as a darkness descended from above. A switch in the point of view showed a massive black cloud moving to swallow the blue planet called Earth. Soon, Earth had been swallowed by the could and the view changed again, showing the planet inside the cloud. Massive nuclear detonations ripped through the atmosphere, shattering the crystal pillars and killing everything on the surface.

The images the Time Gate were viewed by noone, and showed that not even the Sailor Senshi were able to stand against the power of a Shadow Death Cloud.

But the images blurred, indicatzing that this timeline went from dominant to one of the many billion possibilities, as another timeline became dominant.

Again the Time Gate showed space and the beautiful view onto Earth in all its glory. The image switched and began to show a fleet of ships hanging above the planet. Two massive Centurion class Dreadnoughts were in the center of the fleet, each of them longer than the four Warlocks that hung next to them. The fleet of heavy ships were surrounded by smaller vessels, Nike class Battle Cruisers, Lupo class Frigates and Monsoon gunboats. Between all this floated ten ships looking very similar to the Zenith class Assault Vector units, with the caracteristic four spines of a single Quantum Discharge Cannon of the same design as the ones found around Nathan on the moon, betraying their origin as vessels of the Ancients. About a hundred fifty vessels floated above Africa, each of them displaying the crest of the United Nations and the flagg of the nation their crew originated from.

The image changed, showing a similar fleet on the other side of the planet, only that _Dark_ _Knight_ was part of this fleet. And again the image changed to show the Lagrange Point L1 of the Earth-Sun system. A huge number of pods floated there, each of them with ten four meter openings for the same KKV missiles that had destroyed the Doranian cruisers. The view changed, showing a similar field of one shot pods in L2.

And again the image changed, showing the bright lights of vessels leaving slipstream. Slowly the origin of the vessels showed and more vessels appeared from slipstream. Jurian 3rd Generation Treeships, Galaxy Police battleships and a huge number of vessels coming from the numerous races of the Galactic Union. The most prominent vessel of this 10,000 ship strong fleet was a single 2nd Generation Treeship.

Another image appeared, showing a similar scene, just that the fleet consisted of Minbari Sharlins, Tinashis and Liandras, with a few White Stars between. Other vessels of the fleet were coming from other races ofthe Galactic Federation. Again the fleet was consisted of 10,000 ships and the most prominent vessel was a single Victory.

The first ships raced forward towards Earth and right into the deadly beams and projectiles of man made weapons. The Battle for Earth had begun.

The view switched to one of the Pod fields, as they opened fire and a huge number of one shot KKV missiles streaked towards the two enemy fields. Now the view switched constantly, showing short scenes of the great battle. It showed how KKVs slammed into the shields and hulls of unsuspecting vessels of both enemy fleets, how Nathans weapon arrays lanced, how a Monsoon rammed a 3rd Gen Treeship taking it into firy death.

The change of the scenes stopped with a pan to a large gravejard of ships, _Dark_ _Knight_ in the center of the image, the armor scorched and the stern served from the bow. Below, the dark side of Earth glowed in a dark light of nuclear fire sweaping across the continents where heavy beam weapons had slammed into the planets crust. Other parts glowed because of huge craters slowly filled up with lava.

But like the image of Earth being swallowed by a Shadow Death Cloud, this image weavered, making place to another time line that became more dominant.

The images shown by the Time Gate were similar to the last ones, but this time its weren't only vessels build by Earth and Nathan. Other vessels mingled with the human fleet. Vessels shapaed and based on the old EarthForce Hyperion could be seen next to egg shaped vessels. Narn ships floated above Earth next to those of Brakiri, Drazi, Gaim, Pak'ma'ra and even a few Dilgar vessels. And like the Earth ships they shared a single crest, consisting of a inverted triangle, a representation of the galaxy and three groups of stars, while the cresta of their homeworlds were displayed next to them. This fleet was larger than the two Federation and Union fleets in the other timeline.

Again the fleets of Federation and Union appeared, each of them consisting of about 10,000 vessels. Again the Battle for Earth began, but this time, the fleet that guarded Earth won the engagement and Earth was saved.

With the final image of space tugs salvaging wrecks of Minbari and GP vessels the Time Gate shut down its imaging function.

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Vega or Alpha Lyrae, 25.3 light years distant to Sol, one of the brightest stars in the sky above Earth. With 2.6 times the mass of Sol, 3.1 times its size and 51 times the brightness, the A0V star is a relatively common main sequence star. But there is something off about this blue giant. A massive and powerful field of artificial origin surrounds it, changing all the information one can get while looking at the star with telescopes and other assorted methods.

Beneath the field, the star itself doesn't change, but its surroundings change. Earth astronomers have discovered a proto-planetary disk around the sun in the 1980s and it was theorize that a Neptune sized planet could be found there. That has been the truth, but only until about 100,000 years ago, before the Ancients had moved to Vega and changed the systems face.

They used their technological might for a large experiment. In over two thousand years they moved more than 42 planets into orbit around Vega and surrounded the system with a field that prevented prying eyes to see what they did. Six of these planets were capable of supporting carbon based life and the life adapted to the new sun.

After 50,000 years the experiment was considered a success and left alone. During the war between Shadows and Vorlons and the extinction of the Ancients, some remembered Vega and fleet towards the system with a number of Earth humans, settling on one of the worlds, Ferrol.

Taking a look at the system at this moment, and one will notice traffic going between the planets capable of supporting life and some of the moons of the gas giants in the outer system. All of the ships going between the planets were propelled by gravimetric drives of a mid-level Quantum 2 civilization. In fact most of the technology used was of mid-level Quantum 2 level. But what prevented the descendants of the refugees to use slipstream?

In the first centuries after they sought refuge on Ferrol, the refugees had degenerated very fast, forgetting all of their technology, only to begin civilization anew centuries and millennia later. About the time when Egypt saw the pyramids being build, the Ferrons made it back into space and in the following centuries colonized their system. They discovered some old ships from the Ancients and eventually became a civilization of Quantum 2 level. The only thing they lacked was a slipstream drive.

Why? While they were capable of understanding most other technologies, they were not able to understand the basics behind the slipstream drive, nor did they understand the significance of the discovered slipstream systems aboard the Ancient vessels.

But time would change for the Ferrons. Very soon.

In one of the huge orbital shipyards of Ferrol a ship slowly left dock. Massive Ion engines propelled it out of the dry dock of the shipyard and into the bright light of the blue Vega. The massive vessel dwarfed most of the egg shaped vessels of the Ferrons. The hull was colored in a gleaming white, with several blue bands surrounding the forwards section. The aft section was a conglomerate of braces and looked different compared to the flowing lines of the Ferron ships.

But there was something different, instead of the flowing script of the Ferron language, the name was printed in simple clean lines of the Earthern Latin script, reading the ships name, _EAS_ _Kobajashi_ _Maru_. Yes, the _Maru_ was formally an EarthForce vessel, but she was lost in hyperspace during the Dilgar War.

For the Ferrons it was unknown how the ship ended up in their system, but they decided to look over it. Most of the technologies found aboard the Maru were old and obsolete, but others were more advanced and it had one system that would allow the Ferrons to travel faster than light, the Hyperspace Jump Drive. And, opposite of the slipstream drive, they understood the technology behind the Hyperspace Drive.

They were even able to recreate the Jump Gate technology based on the _Maru's_ Jump Drive and now every planet that was either colonized or used for mining had at least one Jump Gate, allowing to speed up traffic between the planets.

Now it was time to leave their home system and the Ferrons would use the _Maru_ for their first big venture out into space behind their systems border. Two egg shaped frigates slowly docked with special cradles on the port and starboard sides and the _Maru_ activated the Ferrol Jump Gate, before moving out into hyperspace. She used tachyon beams created by pulsars in normal space to navigate in hyperspace, as she moved closer to the small yellow dwarf that was 25.3 light years distant to Vega, the possible home of the _Maru_.

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Standing on the bridge of her ship, Tsunami watched, hidden from the rest of the universe, by being slightly out of phase with it. It was one of the few things the Ancients had never thought about.

She sighed as she glanced towards the yellow colored bulk of _Dark_ _Knight_. Knowing exactly where Tenchi had been, and how he had gotten there. She knew everything that had occured to Tenchi, over in the other reality, and was thankful that she had managed to persuade one of the Walkers to monitor him.

But she knew that even the Walker couldn't really interfere with anything. The course of that universe had to run its course. The Circle, as the Vorlons put it so convenient, had to continue, as someone else was destinated to break it.

She closed her eyes as she thought of Tenchi's fate in the other reality. What he had lost, what he had gained...

Everything that had happened made him the person he was now. The person she needed him to be.

"You are wondering what will happen," a familiar voice said from its owner's spot behind her.

She didn't turn to look, as the sensors and cameras of her ship-self told her exactly who it was.

"I haven't seen you since the last Ancient died," she noted, and for a moment felt as helpless as she had felt when the Vorlons and Shadows destroyed the Ancients.

"You couldn't have changed it," the owner of the voice said, and came closer, looking through the large viewport at _Dark Knight._

"I should have seen it coming, Lorien," she muttered, as she closed her eyes.

"You couldn't have done anything, child," the eldest of the Old Ones answered. "You know that we can't interfere like that. You did everything you could do."

As Lorien repeated the old, self imposed, rules of the Old Ones, she remembered how Washuu, her eldest sister, had reacted to the destruction of the Ancients. Her race. Her children. How she had blamed her own kind for it. How she had renounced being an Old One. How she chose to become as close to being mortal as she could. How she chose to forget.

"I guess the Shadows and your other sister will love this," Lorien finally said.

Tsunami flinched at the thought While she still loved her sister, she also remembered how Tokimi had reacted to the last war with the Ancients' extinction. It had been the opposite of Tsunami's and Washuu's reactions.

She remained silent.

"_Dark_ _Knight_ will find Nathan very soon," Lorien said after a few more moments.

"And the Emperor of Jurai will be here soon."

"I wonder what will happen if he is his usual self."

Tsunami said nothing in response, and Lorien looked at her in the silence.

"You can't interfere in this one. We did everything in our power to make sure that the Ancients can return. Now it is time for us to stand back and watch how it plays out."

Again Tsunami looked at _Dark_ _Knight_, before turning to face Lorien.

"Will my sister return to me?"

"It is her choice."

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US Navy Captain Miles Kantor was sitting at one of the computer in the Pentagon. He was one of the people who were currently busy to get through the databases from the DVD the President had gotten from the commander of the space ship that had saved Earth. He was going through the data of smaller captial ships, that should be build by the US, while he knew that others went through data of small arms, sensory tech and the like.

He also knew that a whole lot of other DVDs had gone to Langley, where the CIA would be busy for weeks to get the dossiers and psychological profiles together.

At the moment, he opened at the PDF document that described a Monsoon class gunboat. He chuckled as he read the headline, describing that the file came from 'Jane's all the Galaxies Spaceships'. An image of the Monsoon followed and the basic technical data and capabilities.

For a moment he glanced over to another DVD that was sitting on his desk. The DVD came from someone named Washuu. From what he knew she had modified the plans of several vessels with other technology. One of them the Monsoon, at least according to the small hard copy document next to it.

He put the DVD into the drive of the other computer on his desk and opened the 'fact file' of the Washuu-modified Monsoon. Than he went to compared them.

He whistled a little. The modified Monsoon was outfitted with shields, a so called slipsteam drive capable of more than 450.000 times the speed of light, more compact reactors and a smaller version of the main particle cannon with the same firepower.

He chuckled a little. This gunboat was able to take on captial ships. It was like putting one of the MK 7 16-inch main guns of an Iowa on a PHM1 Pegasus.

For a moment, his thoughts went around the particle weapons. How many space would be free when the weapons was removed. That would be about 19 percent of the gunboats full volume. How much...

He stopped, as the idea came to him. The amount of recon equipment that could fit into the free space. Or ECM/ECCM equipment. One could use the space for ordonance. Missiles, bombs... This performance data like this the Monsoon was perfect for scouting missions. Or hit-and-run attacks. Electronic Warfare. Without the particle cannon it was a perfect multi-purpose ship.

He grimaced a bit. Even with the main gun, a whole squadron of Monsoons could take on a small fleet of larger ships. With the performance data they should be able to dodge most weapons fire and take out one enemy ship after the other.

He shook his head as scribbled the idea down, before closing the window with the PDF file on the Monsoon. He reached for his coffee and opened up the browser on the computer, before pulling up his favorite forum, went through the threads. Of cause their debates about the aliens were going on. He wasn't surprised how many SpaceBattlers had thought that the aliens would be 'unfriendly'. Than he stopped at a thread in the 'Non-SciFi Discussions/Debates' and nearly choked on his coffee as he saw an image straight from the Monsoon file on his computer.

"What the hell..."

He stared at the image, posted by Psychosama, and the link where he had found the file with the image. He opened up the link to the server and was very surprised to find a Public Domain server. And from the looks it contained every single byte of data that was on the DVDs from Camp David.

"Oh shit," he swore.

His superiors wouldn't like this a bit.


	10. Chapter 10

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 9

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Washuu shook her head. The humans of Earth always continued to surprise her. They had just left Camp David and were back on the way towards Andrews in a helicopter. As she had left, she had overheard a few technicians talking.

The things they were throwing around were incredible. The technicians were those who had seen the files of the DVDs first and than made copies for the Pentagon and the CIA. They had seen one or two of the files and were getting the most inovative ideas she had heard in a long time. Not even at the Galactic Academy the students and professors had ideas like this.

The worst part was that the ideas she had overheard were very possible.

There was the idea of one shot launchers for missiles packed together in a pod that could be jettisoned from a ship and than fired. But the worst part was that the technician who had the idea had said that he got the idea from a series of science fiction novels called 'Honor Harrington'. Washuu had done some searches and the basic ideas from the books were all possible. Be it Missile Pods, Laser heads, LACs...

Out of curiosity she had done a simulation of a possible ten shot missile pod. The results were devastating. They could be put onto the outer hull of just about every space ship she knew and fired. Magnetic accelerators could give the missiles a good starting speed before they acquired their targets and went to a terminal velocity approach. Those Pods would be about the size of galactic transport standard container.

Even worse was that they were cheap to produce Quantum 2 level technology, even with Earth technology. A Pod in and of itself would cost about 50 million dollar, while each missile could be produced for about 10 million.

Another idea was building a modified version of the G.O.D. Sattelites from the DVDs. Exchange the main Ion cannon from the satellite with several smaller versions from the Monsoons gunboats, add twenty three shot KKV missile launcher akin to the Missile Pods, add a high powered reactor system and several turrets with Pulse particle weapons and a shield, and you got a defense satellite that could take on a Minbari Tinashi on its own.

Washuu shook her head again and than looked at the screen of her holographic desktop, as it alarmed her that it had found something.

The desktop had been put on a normal Internet search for anything out of the ordinary.

She pulled up what the computer had found and was greeted with the layout of one of her favorite Internet forums, One of the comments to the aliens threat was that Dark Knight would be crewed by giant transforming humanoid robots, but considering that the comment came from Fanboyus Prime, it didn't surprise her. There were other comments about the crew, raging from BUGs over Space Marines to Jedi.

The surprising thing however was a thread started by Psychosama, featuring the image of a Monsoon straight from the Jane's article on the DVDs, complete with a link to a Public Domain server. Looking at the Server, she found that it contained everything that was on the DVDs. And there was also a growing number of mirrors of the server on just about every University server in the world.

She turned her head and looked towards the helicopter where Tenchi flew back to Andrews with this new guy, Clark.

"We definitely need to talk..." she muttered getting a strange look from both her daughter and the princess.

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Again he couldn't help but stare at the images on his TV. CNN had live footage from one of the many kinetic impacts, as they had called it. It seemed that the first aliens in their saucer shaped ships had fired at just about every major population center. Tokyo had been hit three times. Mexico City was burning from six hits. In New York one of the World Trace Center Towers had collapsed after a kinetic impact had punched a hole into it and than destroyed a good part of the Central Park. Just like two other impacts had caused great damage to the Bronx or Brooklyn.

He shook his head. He didn't really know what he should think about the new space ship that had showed up about six hours after the beginning of the bombardment and had simply destroyed the attacking ships.

For a moment he wondered how it would be to command a ship again. Or how it would be to command a space ship.

Again he shook his head. He was a little to old for that with his now 67 years. But...

The telephone rang and shook him from his thoughts. He wondered who would call him now and picked up the receiver.

"Yes?" he asked with his Russian accented voice and a female voice answered.

"Marco Ramius, I presume. I am _Dark_ _Knight_."

For a moment the former commander of the _Red_ _October _stared at the receiver.

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_Dark_ _Knight_ chuckled in her virtual reality. She had known that Marco Ramius would say 'yes' to her little proposal. He hadn't really said 'yes', but he would.

Ramius was just too much of a seaman and a commanding office to just stand aside and not be the commander of a ship. While he hadn't jumped the gun and said yes the first she had mentioned her proposal, he had listened to the single points of her suggestion and said that he would think about it, while asking for her phone number.

With Ramius, the hopefully growing space fleet of Earth would have one of the best ship commanders she could imagine. In fact he was the first of a number of officers _Dark_ _Knight_ thought would be the best for the new fleet. In the beginning the fleet would be small after all and needed all the good officers it could get.

Maybe she could get the 'Vilna Academy' together?

Than she looked over to her wall of virtual displays, each of them now showing the sensory data she had gotten from the moon.

She had taken her time to analyze the strange Tycho Gravimetric Anomaly with her now techno-magical improved sensors, taking layer after layer from the surface and the material of the moon. It was surprising. Normally everyone would miss the strange reading if they didn't look for it. Hell, even she had missed the reading before, until something had happened to get her attention after whoever was behind the strange gravimetric field had decided to download the entire data from the Server Satellite.

Since than the field had dropped in capacity, meaning that he/she/it wanted to be seen by _Dark_ _Knight_ and no one else.

The next was the sheer size of the area below the field. It got more than twenty kilometers below the surface and covered the entire Tycho Crater, that was about 5674.5 square kilometers.

For a moment, _Knight_ hesitated. Should she just call him/her/it? Maybe it was the best thing to do.

She took her tachyon link trancievers and directed them at Tycho.

"Dark Knight to whoever is below the gravimetrical field. Please respond."

She transmitted the message in all languages she knew, including Interlac. She was surprised that she got an answer after the transmission in Minbari.

"This is Nathan. I wondered how long it would take you to contact me."

The voice on the other side sounded male and spoke English.

"Nathan, huh? Who or what are you?"

"I could ask you the same question. You look very much like a mix of Vorlon and human technology."

_Knight_ chuckled.

"You are good."

"No. I'm just a very advanced quantum computer who survived the death of the race that constructed him more than a hundred thousand years ago."

_Kinght_ winced a little.

"Who killed them?"

"Vorlons and Shadows, in a sudden fit of cooperation. They decided that my creators were to much of a threat to their little games with the population of this galaxy."

Kinght frowned and her eyes narrowed.

"So the Vorlons and Shadows exist here too," she muttered." And are their usual selves."

"Why were you build on the moon?" she finally asked after a moment of silence.

"Because it was the ancestral home of my creators, the Ancients. You may also call them First Mankind, if you want. My last orders were to hide myself until the Second Mankind would find me. Or until they would need my help. In a sense both apply now, after the attack on Earth."

"And than?"

"Help them. There weren't any specific orders how."

_Knight_ looked at the screens where the gravimetric fields lowered so much that she could look through them, but no one else could. She noted that the surface of the Tycho crater was still the same, but a hundred meter below large caverns started.

"I am not a military installation. Most of my systems are industrial in nature. But I will need a few weeks or month to get them back online and start to work. I wouldn't use all the technology I have however, since most would bee too much for mankind as it is now. The technology from the Database in orbit however just need a few modifications I already made to introduce Level 2 shields and a Level 2 slipstream drive with Level 3 over ride for emergency situations."

_Knight_ chuckled.

"You already answered a good deal of questions I wanted to ask and told me that you would do things I wanted to ask you to do. I like your style, Nathan."

"Thank you. _Dark_ _Knight_. I have a very high runtime laying dormant. I can afford to thing things through."

There was a short pause.

"I also have a small number of Ancient ships in my hangars. I know that Earth is going to need then in the next future, as I have a large number of Slipstream wakes coming into this direction. I will need about a week to get them online, but The wakes will be here before I can get them online. Not to mention that I don't have crews for these ships."

"I guess Tenchi will deal with that, when he talks to the UN in three days."

"I hope he gets them to pull themselves together in this one."

"Oh, I guess he will."


	11. Chapter 11

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 10

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Tenchi glanced around in the main assembly hall of the United Nations general council. Ass seats were taken and he was a little surprised to see that the seats of the Peoples Republic of China and Indonesia were taken. Both Beijing and Jarkata had been completely destroyed by the Kinetic Strikes of the Doranians three days ago.

Indonesia was breaking apart as the different rebel groups in Aceh, Papua and the other islands used the destruction of the Government to break free from Java. In china something similar was taking place, as movements in Hong Kong or Shanghai tried to be the new government. _Dark_ _Knight_ had caught several communications between Taiwan and the two new 'Governments' on mainland China, as both Shanghai and Hong Kong were more capitalistic/democratic than other new 'Governments'.

The only halfway positive about the whole thing was that Tibet used the same chaos to become independent again. There was also the fact that the Chinese nationalists in Taiwan were beginning to stage an invasion of the Fujian Province. It seemed that a Civil War was breaking out in China, getting back to the same state of affairs as it had been at the beginning of the last century.

Tenchi shook his head. About a fifth of the Earth Population would be drawn into the two Civil Wars of Indonesia and China. And with China, one of the most powerful industries would be lost for the armament for Earth in Space. He doubted that even Nathan, when he was fully back online in about six month would be able to take over for China in production capacity.

He thought back to the last three days. He had underestimated the Internet users and the news agencies. They had found the Sever in space much faster than he had thought and just about every university had started to mirror the server on their own servers.

He hadn't underestimated the US armed forces through. Air Force and Navy were fighting among themselves, who would be responsible for space. It was the second time since the development of ballistic missiles. But this time it was more likely that the Navy would be the winner, as only they had the right training facilities for ship crews.

The US Army on the other side had scrapped just about every order for new weapon systems and were busy to get the weapon production to the new weapons, like PPGs, PPCs and the like. Lockheed had even started to convert several slips that build F-22 to building Thunderbolt Starfuries, as the Army had ordered them.

He looked over to the places where the ambassadors of the European Union sat. The EU had also surprised him. Not even a day after the attacks, their heads of states had gotten together and talked about defense. Just yesterday that had decided to create a 'European Space Defense' and to build their own ships in a Airbus like consortium, based on the plans from the Server. But Tenchi was pretty sure that they would start to ague about how much everyone did for the ESD and the new consortium.

He shook his head. He had much to do. First of all he had to give the UN a kick in its collective ass to pull together and build up a defense for Earth, even if it had to happen in 'secret'.

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Lieutenant David 'Biggy' Bigston was one of the many volunteers at Edwards AFB. And like most pilots, he was from the CVN-65 _USS_ _Enterprise_.

His head felt like the Big E would cruise through his head with full speed, while her CAW was starting and landing at the same time. However, he hadn't drank the previous day, he rather was one of the first volunteers that had been a 'victim' of the 'Washuu Speed Schooler 5000'. The infernal device had cramped huge amounts of information into his skull and he had seen how Washuu, this small young looking redheaded genius had stared at him and the others who had been 'victims' like him.

From what he knew, Washuu had estimated that they would be out of it for at least a day, not just eight hours.

Bigston didn't really care. All he cared was to get into the cockpit of a Thunderbolt on the _Dark_ _Knight_ and kick some Doranian ass. And he knew that most of the pilots and weapon operators thought like him. They had managed to take out the Big E, while she had been in Pearl and most of her crew off duty and having fun on Hawaii.

As he looked around he saw a good number of officers and enlisted men and women who had been on the Big E and been lucky to be away from the ship when a 20 ton rock hit and sunk her.

"For the Big E," someone said and held his coffee mug high." May the next Big E be a space ship."

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Washuu winced slightly as she listened to the men and women in the large canteen of Edwards. She knew that most of them were from the _Enterprise_ and that the ship was a legend in and off itself. It wasn't just Star Trek that had made this ship a legend.

She had seen the grim determination in the faces of many of the volunteers, who wanted to become the new crew of _Dark_ _Knight_. It weren't just pilots or weapon operators. There were also engineers, technicians and other specialists from just about all branches of the US military, but the US Navy had much more volunteers at Edwards.

But it wasn't only _Dark_ _Knight_. There were also twenty ships on the moon, preserved by Nathan after the destruction of his creators and crews for the thirty ships Washuu's lab was currently building.

Washuu had noted that the vessels in Nathan's storage were heavy battleships with four massive booms of a quantum discharge weapon. Accordingly Washuu had her lab building smaller support ships based on the data from the DVD Tenchi had provided. Four Lupo class frigates, four Vigilante class cutters and twenty two Monsoon class gunboats in four variants, two of them proposed by a US Navy technician, Captain Miles Kantor.

Last thing Washuu had heard about him, was that he had been pulled into a 'braintank' for designing a space battle doctrine for the United States. But if all things went right, the doctrine could be taken over by the Fleet of the united Earth.

She looked over to the display that told her the status of the 'Washuu Speed Schooler 5000'. The third group of fifty people were finished and helpers were moving the unconscious volunteers from the machine, while the next group was getting ready to get beneath and their brains filled with all the information they needed to do their jobs.

She had been surprised twice by the people waking from the schooling. The first surprise was that they woke much earlier that she had anticipated. Any other being in the galaxy would wake after 24 earth hours and than be barley able to even talk. Not even Jurians were able to get up after so little time. And the humans of Earth just woke up, proclaimed that they had the worst headache they ever had and that they wanted a strong coffee. Through one of them had said that the headache reminded him of the one time he had managed to out drink a Russian sailor.

Her second surprise were two reactor engineers, formally working on the reactors of the _Enterprise_. Both, independently, had asked her why the fusion reactors were so inefficient, if they work much better with just a minute alignment of the magnetic field coils. Washuu had taken one look at the designs of the Earth Force reactors and found out that both were right.

She smiled slightly. Mankind had a very good chance to get by out there.

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Tenchi breathed in deep as he nodded at the US American ambassador to the UN and slowly walked towards the main speakers platform. He was dressed in his Earth Force Best Dress Uniform. Some of the Ambassadors glared at him and the Japanese Ambassador seemed to be very surprised. Not all that surprising, considering that he looked very much like his grandpa in his disguise, just about ten years younger and considering that the Ambassador was of one of the few families the Emperor of Japan had told about the Masaki line.

He stood behind the speakers desk and placed a small holographic projector in front of him. A button was pressed and it signaled that it was ready to follow his orders. Tenchi would have smiled, if the situation had been different.

He looked around and for a moment looked at each Ambassador individually, before looking up to a balcony where CNN, NBC and other networks had placed their cameras.

"Ladies and Gentlemen Ambassadors," he began.

"My name is Tenchi Masaki. I was born in 1983 in Okayama, Japan. By heritage, I am an eighth Jurian, an alien. My ancestor was the Price of a planet called Jurai and that makes me the Price of Jurai by Jurian laws. Jurians live a long time, so the father of my ancestor is still alive and the Emperor of Jurai."

There were murmures going through the large hall.

"I know about this, since two years ago, two princesses of Jurai, the sisters of my ancestor landed on Earth in search of their brother. I have been in space and on Jurai. I could take the place of the Emperor of Jurai any time, as the current Emperor doesn't want the job anymore. But I don't care."

Shocked silence spread in the room before more murmurs went through the crowd.

"Just five days ago something happened that changed my life forever. I was thrown into another reality by a device of extra-terrestrial origin. I lived there for about thirty years before I was able to get back home. In that other reality, mankind had spread towards the stars, build colonies on other planets and made contact with other intelligent races.

"But even than, war still followed them. About a year after I landed in that reality, I was drafted into the Space Force of Earth Alliance to fight against an enemy that threatened to wipe out all human life. Earth was losing this war, but before the enemy could destroy Earth, they discovered that human had the same souls as they did. And they didn't kill their own kind."

He was silent for a moment.

"But this planet Earth, our planet Earth, probably isn't as lucky as Earth Alliance was. Because we are in a situation that is worse than the situation for Earth Alliance every way."

He pressed a button and a holographic projection appeared in the hall, showing the galaxy, two large parts were colored in orange and green. While other smaller parts were different colored.

"The orange area is the Galactic Union, a union of many different races and planets under guidance the Jurian Empire. The green area is the Galactic Federation, like the Union, a large group of races under the guidance of the Minbari. Currently the Union and the Federation are in a state very similar to the Cold War on this planet at the time frame of the Cuba Crisis.

"Essentially the whole Galaxy is a powder keg waiting for a spark to set it off."

Again he pressed a button and the projection zoomed in. It showed a yellow dot in the center, while other colors surrounded the yellow spot.

"The yellow spot is the Solar system. Earth. It is in the middle of an area called the 'Corian Expanse', an area of a hundred light years diameter where Earth is the only habitable planet. Spinwards of the Expanse are the Narn Regime in brown and the Federation in green. Corewards and rimwards are the League of Nonaligned Worlds in yellow. Also corewards are the Centauri Republic in blue and the Doranian Protectorate in red. Anti-spinwards is the Union in orange.

"The Expanse is also the only area in space where the Union and the Federation are just a hundred light years away from each other. And Earth is a perfect base for both sides in case of a war."

Again shocked silence.

"Earth has the resources that makes it a perfect base. A civilized population, material recourses and one of the densest populations in the galaxy. For them mankind are just six billion barbarians they can use in a war for their gain. Either as soldiers or as cheap labor for building up bases or fortifications.

"Earth is a strategic target for both."

He made a pause.

"I know that no one in this room likes to hear this, but at this moment Earth and mankind has serious problems. Mankind is facing one of the greatest challenges it ever faced.

"We need to defend ourselves. We need to fight for our freedom."

Again he made a pause and a good number of ambassadors were standing and applauding.

"I realize that we can't build up a defense in a short time. In fact we will need years to do this.

"At this moment, the United States are rebuilding slips on Norfolk and San Diego to build the first Earth build space warships, based on the data I provided on the Public Domain Server you all heard about in the news. There is also an ancient industrial installation on the moon, build by a race called 'The Ancients'. This installation is run by an Artificial Intelligence named Nathan. Nathan has existed for the last hundred thousand years and he always looked down on Earth. His last order before his creators died out has been to help the race developing on Earth if they would be attacked from the outside.

"The attack by the alien spaceships of the Doranian Protectorate on Earth has caused Nathan to help us. He is providing Earth with twenty war ships of the Ancients he has in storage, while building new ones on the new designs.

"I also have a good friend, Washuu Habuki, who calles herself the 'Greatest Scientific Genius in the Universe'. I tend to belive her. She has a highly automated lab hidden in a sub dimension and this lab is able to build ships. She is only going to build thirty ships based on my designs.

"Nathan will have reactivated two of the Ancient ships by the end of this week, while Ms. Habuki's lab will finish the first five ships at the same time. But these ships won't have a crew.

"So I am calling for volunteers from all nations of Earth, until we can establish a real Earth Force. Every volunteer will be brought to the Edwards Air Force Base in the United States where Ms. Habuki has set up rapid schooling devices that will teach everyone how to run these vessels."

He glanced at the audience and than at the TV cameras in the room.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, don't waste time with arguments. Act."

With that he deactivated the projector and left the platform.

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G'Kar slowly walked through the empty corridors of _Dark_ _Knight_. Well, he knew that the ship wasn't really empty, having an intelligence, maybe even a soul. He thoughts went back the last days.

He had survived an attack by the Doranians on Novak Station. It would have been ironic to survive the pursuit of the Centauri, only to be stuck on the station for years after the Second Independence of Narn, because the new Narn government didn't have the recourses to look for him, and to die by the hands of a race that was less advanced than the Narn and the Centauri.

As he had set his foot on the station, he had sworn himself to use the ship to get away from the station. He had been pretty sure that the ship wouldn't fly to Narn, which turned out to be true. Than the commander of the ship, Tenchi Masaki, who was at least partly Jurian and even owned one of the famous Jurians keys, turned out to know G'Kar, or at least an alternate version of him.

Than he had taken G'Kar with him and to his homeworld, a small Sub-Quantum 0 world about to be invaded by the Doranians. After the defeat, a Galaxy Police patrol ship had docked and Masaki's family of all things had come aboard. Two of them being princesses of Jurai and one the infamous Ryoko.

G'Kar shook his head. While he had heard that Ryoko was free by GP and Jurian laws, he knew that a good number of races wanted a piece of her. The best she could do was to stay here and lay low, just like he had done on Novak Station.

After years G'Kar had the chance to breath fresh air and set his foot on a planet, but that damned GP patrol ship had prevented that by errecting a force field and let him be stuck with one of the clingiest people he had ever met. The whole time, until the others came back, she had clinged to him and wailed about 'loosing Tenchi' and how glad she was that he was back. Only the fact that she was a GP officer, through not a good one according to the ships AI, prevented him from hitting her.

He shook his head again and looked around. _Dark_ _Knight_ had told him that there would be a few new crew members in the near future. Masaki's Second in Command, this Setsuna had gone down to the planet with a shuttle to get the first group of new crew members.

He sighed. Maybe he should have tried to get with her and to the planet. But there was always the next group of new crew members for him to go down to the planet and get some fresh air.

He remembered the talk he had with Masaki. While Masaki couldn't say anything of value, he had talked about the possibility of Earth allying with the Narn, maybe even some new tech for the Narn fleet. But to talk about more, he needed to wait for the governments on Earth to pull together.

Again he shook his head. To think that these Eath humans survived this long with constant infighting. He sighed. The Centauri did more or less the same and they survived too.

They were an interesting bunch.

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Setsuna grinned a bit as she guided the _Coronado_, an Icarus class scout ship, onto the glide path down to Edwards AFB. Tenshi had bought the _Coronado_ some time ago before he had the idea go get back home, because it was a problem to get by in a Warlock, especially in a Vorlon-hybrid Warlock like _Dark_ _Knight_.

_Dark_ _Knight_ had fitted a relais on the _Coronado_ and refit her engines and weapons so what, but other than that the Icarus looked like any other Icarus. She was still 80 meters long and several thousand tons heavy.

"Edwars actual, _Coronado_. I'm going to set down now."

Setsuna was glad that Edwards was mostly free space, as she had always some problems landing the _Coronado_. She guided the nose down slowly and the langing gear made contact with the ground, the right engine flaring up slightly and angling the scout to the left.

Setsuna pressed against the angling and cut the thrust to the engines, with the _Coronado_ setting down very heavy, but the landing gear could take much more.

'I know why I normally let Tenchi fly this thing,' she thought.

'But he isn't here at the moment, so you have to play bus driver,' was _Dark_ _Knight_ reply.

'Oh joy...'

"_Coronado_, this is Edwards Actual, are you okay?" a worried voice came over radio and Setsuna sighed.

"Just peachy," she answered." Still a little rattled from some 'adventures' in the last three days."

Setsuna grinned at the thought. She hadn't let Pluto from the bed in that time and the sex was the best she had ever had. Not to mention that it was fun to deprogram someone on this way.

'Maybe you should have freed her before getting down to Earth,' came _Knights_ dry reply and Setsuna groaned at the bad pun.

Setsuna looked out of the window and grinned. A group of HMMWV and a few trucks were driving towards the _Coronado_ and she could sense Washuu...-chan being in one of the HMMWVs. She slowly moved towards the exit of the scout ship and glanced into the cargo hold, currently refit to a passenger module with enough space for seventy people additional to the thirty the Icarus was able to hold without.

She grinned as she felt how a good number of the male soldiers in the HMMWVs reacted to seeing her in her skintight black leather outfit, as she walked out of the air lock and down onto the dessert ground. A look over to the red haired scientist showed her that Washuu was very interested in the scout ship.

"That ship is about the same size as Yagami," Washuu noted before anyone else could say anything.

Setsuna nodded.

"Yes, and less flashy than _Dark_ _Knight_."

"True."

"You brought the volunteers for DK?"

Washuu nodded.

"A hundred for the beginning. We have more where these come from. Especially if other nations start to send their volunteers."


	12. Chapter 12

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 11

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Yosho sighed as he leaned into the branches of Fuhano and sighed. For the first time in his life he didn't really know what he should do. A part of him wanted to stay here and out of the way, but another part of him wanted to actively help the UN and the hopefully forming Earth Defense Force.

Earth was his home, more than Jurai ever was. He had lived here for the last seven hundred years and seen how mankind advanced from the surely primitive civilization to landing people on their moon. And they had done so faster than any other race. It made him proud to be at least partly Earthern, or Terran as the numerous news stations started to call it.

The last three days had been very interesting to say at least. Washuu had literally jumped the gun to help Tenchi out and had helped to set up a rapid schooling center at Edwards in California. But she hadn't only done that. She had also changed most of the space ship designs with more effective reactors, additional shields and slipstream engines.

Ryoko had surprised him. She had kept away from Tenchi, even through she knew that she had taken his disappearance the worst. Part of it was because Ryo-Ohki was still in the coma induced by the Vogon poetry. Who would have thought that Douglas Adams had been right about that...

He sighed. Maybe Ryoko just showed that she lived him, by giving him enough space to do his job. Maybe it was something different. He honestly couldn't say.

Ayeka was the opposite. He had to manhandle her to get her aboard of Yagami and back to Earth. She would have stayed on Dark Knight and tried to get Tenchi to fly to Jurai and give his ship to the Empire. Was she really still that naive after all those years? He couldn't really believe that she was.

But the her whole behavior showed that Ayeka didn't really love Tenchi. It was as if she tried to get back at Ryoko by getting him to chose her. Yosho had seen similar things several times her on Earth before.

Sasami was her normal self, through she seemed to be very supportive towards Tenchi. He was like a big brother to her and she loved him that way. It was normal for her to support him in this, but Yosho knew that there was more behind her decision. Maybe Tsunami-sama was influencing her.

Mihoshi had surprised him more than Ryoko had. Everyone saw her as a diz and air head and he knew that she was, but she showed that she knew more of the current political situation in the galaxy than everyone thought she did. Heck, she knew more than Yosho. To make it more interesting was the fact that her thoughts about the situation pretty much matched his own.

And she also said that she would support Tenchi. She hadn't said how, but she would do, it was just her character.

Mihoshi pretty much showed that she was more intelligent than her air-headedness let everyone think about her. If she wasn't, she wouldn't have been able to get this far in Galaxy Police, even with her family ties.

Yosho sighed again as Fuhanos branches rustled. She would support Yosho any way she could.

"Hello?" a male voice suddenly called out.

Yosho raised an eyebrow and looked down. An elder man was standing below. He was Caucasian in appearance and looked to be about about 60 years old.

Yosho silently dropped from the tree, assuming his disguise as he fell down behind the unknown man. Standing up he cleared his throat, which caused the man to turn startled.

"I'm looking for a Yosho," the man said in English with a Russian accent.

Yosho raised an eyebrow and scratched his chin.

"And why are you looking for him, Mr...?"

"My name is Marco Ramius," the man introduced himself." Someone called _Dark_ _Knight_ said that I would find someone named Yosho here to contact the commander of the ship in orbit."

Yosho raised his eyebrow again.

"I am Yosho," he said and bowed slightly." And I guess you are at the right place."

Yes, he thought, maybe it is time to take an active role in this.

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Captain Miles Kantor couldn't help but chuckle as he listened to the conversations all around him. He was in one of the large hangars of Edwards AFB, surrounded by intensely chatting engineers, physicists, SciFi authors and a good number of 'geeks'/known SciFi fans of all branches of the US Armed Forces.

Most of them were standing together in smaller groups, intensely chatting over concepts, ideas and designs. This had more the feel of a SciFi convention than a meeting that would, hopefully, end in the creation of a Space Naval Doctrine and several ideas that would help Earth to survive in the future, especially in the next few years. At least no one was wearing a Klingon costume...

At the moment the whole thing going on was a massive brainstorming of about five hundred people. Some were standing around desks and scribbling something on sheets of paper, while others were just standing around, cans of soft drinks or cubs of coffee in their hands.

Not to far away he could hear two engineers talking with David Weber about the possibility of missile pods. He still knew Weber's reaction to learning about Nathan.

"At least it's not Dahak."

Next to them was an Army Major, a representative of Kraus-Maffei, some physicists, 'geeks' and John Ringo arguing if it would be better to build a BOLO or an OGRE. Ringo had commented that someone should build a Tiger III and put an AI named 'Bun-Bun' into it.

He wondered what the Joint Chiefs would think how the future of mankind in space was beginning with a huge bunch of 'geeks'. Hell, he even had seen Forry Ackerman and Sir Arthur.

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Washuu shook her head. She had just seen how the first group of new crew men were getting to _Dark_ _Knight_ as the HMMWV she was in stopped in front of a large open hangar, filled with a great number of people. She knew that this was the 'Future Space Meeting' as the peoples high in the command chain of the US Armed Forces had called it.

She had thought that she would have to deal with military people, but this was quite the opposite. Only about a third of the people were in military uniforms, the rest was wearing normal clothes. And she was surprised that they weren't just listening to someone standing in front of the room, but standing around and freely chatting.

This sparked her interest and she walked up to one of the groups standing around a table. She could see several sheets of paper on the table as she listened to the ongoing conversation.

"Lets see," one of them said and scribbled something down." Lets say the laser beam got a diameter of a meter and an energy of 1 megaton. On that area we got a energy of..."

He grabbed a calculator from the table and made a few calculations.

"...of about 1.27 kilotons per square centimeter."

The other people around the table nodded.

"Now lets take the figures and try to get the same energy density using a kinetic impact. Lets assume a projectile with a mass of a kilogram and a impact area of a square centimeter. To get 1.27 kilotons impact power, we need..."

Again he took the calculator.

"...we need a speed of about 3259 kilometers per second. That is about a percent of the speed of light."

The people looked at another man on the table.

"Well, Jeff, I don't exactly know how fast the projectiles from one of these rail guns are, but I don't think they are as fast as a tenth the speed of light to deliver the same power as a 1 Megaton laser beam."

"But with a heavier projectile and the right geometry of the projectile we get lower speeds. Lets just assume a ten kilo projectile. About 900 kilometers per second. About a third percent c. Sounds more reasonable, eh?"

"A SABOT," someone else said." We could build a heavy projectile with a thin head, where most of the mass is concentrated in the rear of the projectile."

"I still don't think that a KEW would be better than a laser."

Washuu shook her head as she stopped listening to the conversation to try and find another interesting conversation going on.

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Eduard Petrovich Grushavoy, President of the Russian Republic, looked out of the window of his Kremlin window and frowned slightly. Far away he could still see the thick black cloud that was rising over the east of the city, where Reutov had to be. The town just outside of Moscow had been hit by one of the Kinetic Impacts three days ago and the area was still burning. Even the entire fire departments of Moscow, the surrounding towns and the army were still trying to get the fires under control.

He sighed. Not just Reutow had been hit. Vladivostok and Saint Petersburg had also been hit, burning down because the firefighters and the army weren't able to handle the fires.

Grushavoy was glad that prospectors had found large oil and gold deposits in Sibiria some time ago and that the resources were already starting to flow, bringing money into the country and letting the Russian economy recover. Now the money would be needed to rebuild the three destroyed cities.

And for something else.

It was strange that Russia, or rather the entire world, had to be attacked by aliens to get the citizens to stop complaining and to get them to start working for a better future. Just a day after the hits, the opinion polls had gone from only little government support to overwhelming government support.

Grushavoy supposed that the United States went through something similar, when the 747 hit the Capitol and killed nearly the entire US government.

He looked over to the TV, where CNN was repeating the speech of this Tenchi Masaki at the United Nations.

Earth needed a powerful defense, he was sure of it. But this wouldn't be an American only thing. Masaki had given the technology needed to defend Earth to the entire world, via Internet. The SVR had downloaded the entire database and were busy to analyze the information. It was only a matter of time until Golovko brought him some hard information about the situation out there.

But until than, Grushavoy had to make sure that Russia would be an integral part of the new Earth defense. His pride as a Russian wouldn't allow the US and the Europeans to dominate the defense of Earth. And the massive industrial cities in Sibiria, relics of the Cold War were perfect to do just that.

Industry that had been build to make the Soviet Union a powerful country would now be used to make Russia a powerful member of the new Earth Force.

Grushavoy liked the sound of that. It was free of the notions of western dominance. Earth Force...

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Tenchi sighed. He had just talked to the UN Security Council. The ambassador of China had tried to talk down everything and sabotage just about every suggestion, but just about everyone else had ignored him. Or at least tried to. Until the German ambassador, temporal member of the Security Council, had had enough and flat out told the Chinese to shut up and that his country didn't really exist anymore.

That much was true. Especially considering some of the CNN news from Hong Kong. Hong Kong and Shanghai had gotten together. Hell, even Taiwan had been there. The news had talked about the foundation of the National Republic of China. But at the moment the NRC was little more than Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Anhui, Zhejiang and Jiangsu.

And there were several others against the NRC, the remains of the PRC with the provinces around Beijing and most of northern China, and several smaller factions, lead by Generals in the rest of China. And Quinghai was one of the provinces that had a strong General leading them, Marshal Luo Cong. It was strange how fast some thing were going. Not even three days since the fall of the old government and the PRC had been reduced to six major and about ten minor factions. Two with a sort of democratic government of intellectuals, one with a government based in Taiwan and two communist factions and the rest being little more than military dictatorships in their beginning stages.

The Security Council had been shocked when they heard something Tenchi hadn't told the entire UN, that Earth was part of the Jurian Protected Planets Treaty and was considered a part of Jurai and that Jurai was listing Earth as Colony 0315. Of cause Nathan had given every proof that it wasn't the case. But still...

They also talked about the formation of the Earth Defense Force. Tenchi had told them that this Earth Force had to be out of direct control of the UN, as the Earth Force would need to be fast on their feet and couldn't have the 'luxury' of talking to the UN first, when someone openly attacked Earth.

Most of what Tenchi had told them was taken seriously and some of it was hard to swallow. But in the end it came down to several sentences he had already said in front of the entire UN.

"We need to defend ourselves. We need to fight for our freedom. We don't have time to waste with arguments. We need to act."

Now he just hoped that they would act fast.

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'Biggy' Bigston was still awed by _Dark_ _Knight_. The whole ship was something straight out of a SciFi geeks wet dream. And he was still a little out of it, considering the rapid schooling.

For a moment he had stood in front of a terminal of the ship and suddenly, like a Deja Vu, he knew how to use it. It was surreal.

Even more so as he had looked at the hangar for the first time, seeing the orange armored Thunderbolts and shuttles. He had looked at a Thunderbolt and instantly knew the capabilities of the Starfury. Looking at the cockpit, he knew how to fly it. Or at least how it was done. There wasn't much that told him when to do what. He still would need to learn how to fly it.

It was strange to see the flight crews looking at unfamiliar equipment for several moments until they used it for the first time, just than remembering how to use them. About two thirds of the people that had gotten to _Dark_ _Knight_ in the first flight had been aviators, weapon officers and flight crews, enough to get at least about 12 Thunderbolts out into space, the first part of _Knights_ CAW.

And now he was sitting in the cockpit of 'his' Thunderbolt, after staring at the Earth Force standard flight suit for moments until he knew how to get into it. And even that had needed about three minutes. Behind him, his weapon officer, Ensign Joice 'Radar' Mitchell, sat, like him still trying to familiarize herself with the cockpit.

Setsuna had gone back to Earth to get the next batch of volunteers, but the ship itself had started to help its new crew to get used to the ship. And she had ordered the aviators and weapon officers to familiarize themselves with the fighters and suggested to get some active flight time.

So here he was, getting ready to get thrown out into space for the first time in a fighter he knew and didn't knew how to fly.

"This is Zeta One, ready for drop," he said into the radio.

"Roger that, Zeta One," the voice of the catapult technician came back." May take a while through."

'Biggy' nodded, knowing that the catapult technician had to get used to his new stuff too. He had gone from controlling one catapult on the Big E to controlling about twelve catapults.

"Take you time," 'Radar's' voice came from behind him.

After a minute the hangar doors opened in front of the Thunderbolt and the two rails of the catapult charged up to throw the Starfury out into space.

"Kinda like the start from the Big E," Biggy muttered and sighed." Okay, how does this work..."


	13. Chapter 13

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 12

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Tenchi sighed. He had gotten home just a week ago and he already wanted to get back to the Earth Alliance Universe. It had been much easier there.

Here he had already gotten involved into politics at a level he never had imagined. He had hoped that he could get back to his old life and just live peacefully at the shrine only worrying now and than about the things going on.

Now he had to build up a defense for Earth from extra terrestrial threats from scratch. Sure Washuu, Nathan and the databases helped, but still...

He looked at the display in front of him, reading the first reports since the last time _Dark_ _Knight_ had a crew. One thing he had to say, the new crew wasn't unnerved by the vorlon bio parts of _Dark_ _Knight_ as the old had been. On the other side, while they were trained personal, most of them coming from the destroyed _USS_ _Enterprise_, they were untrained for a space ship. They also had reacted relatively normal to the resident alien G'Kar or the rather strange sight one or two people got when Setsuna entered or left her cabin and seeing a second Setsuna bound to something.

Maybe he would need to talk to her later, when she came back from the last flight from Edwards to Nathan, to bring crews to the Ancient ships he had gotten out of storage. Two were nearly finished and Nathan just put the new crews through something like Washuu's rapid schooling, so that they could fly those battleships.

Washuu on the other side was nearly finished with five of the Monsoons, but like the battleships on the Moon, she needed to get the new, through smaller crews to work with the equipment. Both Nathan and Washuu would need about a day to get he ships into space.

He chuckled a bit as he thought of the crews. One of the battleships and one Monsoon were crewed by Americans, all of them Navy personal. He had been forced to step down and flat out tell the fly boys that only the Navy had the right personal to crew a space ships. The Admirals still hadn't lost that smug grin...

The American battleship had been named _Alabama_, while the Monsoon was named _Potomac_. The other battleship and another Monsoon were crewed by Russians, a concession towards Grushavoy. The Russian battleship was named _Potempkin_, the Monsoon _Kirow_. The other three Monsoons were crewed by the British, German and Japanese, named _Dauntless_, _Hamburg_ and _Arcadia_. He had a good chuckle about the Japanese Monsoon.

Well, he would see how the new crews would work out.

Than there was the situation on Earth itself. Even if he had told the UN that they should act and not talk, they were still talking about the pros and contras, every day, all day, ever since he had talked in front of the UN.

The situation in China was starting to look grim. Marshal Luo Cong had proved that he was a dangerous man. From Quinghai he had quickly taken over a minor player in the 'game' over China, as his troops entered Gansu. At the moment it looked like he was after Sichuan. The thing was that Cong had confirmed control over several nuclear tipped Long March missiles and a number of long rage bombers armed with nuclear weapons. Tenchi didn't doubt that he would use them if he needed to.

The National Republic of China, mostly centered around Taiwan, Hong Kong and Shanghai were most likely the second large player, through they were much more peaceful than Marshal Cong. All over the NRC Taiwanese troops were entering mainland China, moving inlands. Thankfully the NRC also had confirmed control over several missiles and bombers with nuclear armament.

But how long could the NRC counter Cong? That was the big question. India was very concerned about the situation in China and they had started to move troops towards the border of Tibet and took back the areas the Chinese had just taken over from India. Tenchi had been a bit surprised that the Dalai Lama had allowed the Indian government and military to move troops through the freed Tibet to get into China should the situation escalate.

The situation in Indonesia turned out to become a sort of Civil War. The situation on Sumatra was getting out of control, the Muslim extremists in Aceh making the most trouble. There were hundreds more movements all over the islands of Indonesia and while Papua was going straight towards independence, East Timor was going down the drain. Australia had already started to move most of their navy into the Indian Ocean and it was very likely that Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines were going to get involved to protect the freighters going through the Malacca Strait, the Java Sea and just about every other international sea area between the islands.

The good news were that Russia was defiantly a part of the future Earth Defense, as were the European Union, Japan and the US. Now they just needed to get more states into it. The remaining nations of the British Commonwealth and the rest of Asia for example.

"Sir, we got a problem," a voice suddenly said in front of him." Nathan just measured several... uhm... Slipstream events?"

Tenchi blinked. He was so used to an empty bridge that he tended to forget that he wasn't the only one around.

"Do we have any coordinates?" he asked, recovering fast." Or any other data?"

"Not yet, we need some..."

"Silhouette match," another new sensory technician said." A fleet of five Primus and twenty Vorchan. Centauri designs."

"Sound General Quarters. It starts to get interesting."

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Commander Tar Molari was nervous, that was a fact. But he was very good at hiding his nervousness. However, he was less nervous than he had been several days ago and glad that another small fleet had meet up with his fleet just inside the Corian Expanse, adding three Primus and eight Vorchan to the fleet going after the unknown ship.

Now he was more confident to be able to take control over the unknown ship and bring it home to Centauri Prime. Against five Primus, the ship wouldn't stand a chance. The Primus was a time proved design after all. It had been in service since Kagato and Ryoko had razed over the galaxy and it had been the main reason for the success of the Republic in the time after.

"We are leaving slipstream," the navigator informed him.

Molari just nodded and looked at the screen in front of him. The swirly view from slipstream was replaced with the normal pitch black view of space. There weren't any stars on the screen, as the optics making the pictures weren't able to take in the two bright celestial bodies in front of the fleet and the less bright stars at the same time.

"Contact," the sensory technician said." Identification unknown."

The screen changed and showed a orange colored brick like ship. Molari growled slightly. That ship was ugly. Who ever had build it had no understanding for aesthetic and art.

Information was inlaid into the screen and for a moment Molari doubted the size indication. That ship was longer than a Primus, about four times the size of a Vorchan. There were a few doubts in Molari, but he forcefully pushed them into the back of his mind.

He watched as the massive warship on the screen turned about to face his fleet and how the massive turrets turned around with a speed he couldn't really believe.

He breathed in deep and hoped they would buy his bold lie.

"Open a channel to the ship," he said before starting to speak.

"This is Commander Tar Molari of the Centauri Republic. You are in violation of Centauri space. Stand down, deactivate any shields and weapons. We are sending a boarding team. Comply or we will forced to destroy you."

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"... will be forced to destroy you."

The new members of _Dark_ _Knights_ bridge crew looked at each other and than at their new commanding officer.

"That guy is kidding right?" one of them asked out loud.

"He's Centauri," Tenchi said as if it explained everything.

To him it did anyway. Through he was a little surprised that the vessels of the native Centauri were about 20 percent or so smaller than the ship from the EF-universe.

"Earth is currently under the Protected Planets Treaty of the Jurians. Maybe a good scare would be the right thing to..."

He wasn't able to say more as he was interrupted.

"Nathan reports more Slipstream events."

"Contact to separate fleets. I can get a Silhouette match of one fleet. Minbari. One Shargoti, three Sharlin and ten Tinashi."

Tenchi raised an eyebrow.

"First Centauri, now Minbari... Any match on the other fleet?"

"Not yet, but I have a visual."

The main view screen changed, showing five ships that looked like they were made from wood. In fact, they were.

"Lovely," Tenchi said dryly." My great grandfather decides to use this moment to come for a visit..."

He ignored the size indication beneath the screen, showing everyone else that the most massive vessel of the Jurian fleet was at least twice as large as Dark Knight, while the four escorts were as large as a normal Warlock. But still each ship looked different.

"Silhouette match on the second fleet in the extended ship library. Lead vessel identified as _The Throne_, the four escorts as 2nd Generation Tree ships."

"Now it really gets interesting," Tenchi said with a sigh." I want targeting solutions for the Minbari and Centauri vessels. Lock weapon controls. Signal to Nathan, I need Setsuna up here."

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Langley, Virginia, home of the Central Intelligence Agency. At the moment the headquarters of the 'Company' was a hive of activity.

Many of the analysts in the large offices were busy, not with new informations coming from China, Indonesia or the rest of the planet, but rather with informations originating from several DVDs, multiple public domain servers and the large quantum computer on the moon Nathan.

These analysts were busy to condense the information in the multitude of PDF files and to create reports and psychological analysis of the various alien civilizations.

Now there was a meeting underway over several very interesting informations.

"Let me get this straight," Assistant Director for Operations said." We got to deal with Jurian nobles, who happen to be some sort of Jedi?"

CIA analyst Jason Cruger nodded.

"At least considering that they got light sabers, called keys, and some ability to create energy shields. Not to mention that they could so the same as Qui-Gon and Obi Wan in Episode One."

"And the Minbari got people with similar powers,"

Again Cruger nodded.

"It seems they are called Rangers. They may not be able to create shields, but they could fight a Jurian noble and win fifty fifty. But while the Jurians seem to niherit these powers from their parents, it seems as if the Rangers would be genetically changed or something similar."

The room was silent.

"And a fair number of the other races also got elite troops that are close to either those Jurians or the Rangers."

"So essentially you are trying to tell us that we may need something similar."

Cruger nodded.

"Some sort of SpecOps Jedi maybe..."

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Dukhat's eyes narrowed as he looked at the holographic display in front of the bridge and the massive vessel that was sitting in the center of the image, the _Throne_.

"Jurians," he could hear a warrior mutter.

Sure, this system was part of the Jurian Protected Planet Treaty, but how high was the possibility of the Jurian flagship coming to this system at the same time as his fleet. This chance was very low.

And considering the very bad political situation, he had to walk very carefully. Any wrong word or gesture could lead to another diplomatic problem, maybe even the start of the war that was about to come.

Dukhat knew, as well as everyone else in the Gray Council, that the war was only a matter of time, but he hoped that he would have at least fifty years until the war started.

Another glance went to a pair of smaller displays. One of them was showing the reason of his fleet being here. The ship displayed on the screen was ugly, no question. An ugly cross of a brick and a Vorlon space ship. But it radiated power. And it was something the Vorlons didn't know. Something that set them on the edge. Dukhat hoped that he would find out that this ship wasn't a threat to the Minbari, the Federation or the Vorlons. If he did, he wouldn't be forced to destroy this ship, through he had his doubts that he could.

The other screen showed a fleet of the Centauri. Something had pulled the Centauri to this system. He shook his head as he thought that they maybe wanted to try an invade this system. They had lost control over the Narn and the new Emperor, Catagia, wanted to bring back the old days of the Centauri Republic. To invade a sub-Quantum 0 world would be one of the way Catagia thought he could go. The Narn should have been more than a lesson to the Centauri.

Dukhat looked back at the image of the _Throne_.

'In Valens name, don't let me make any mistake...'

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Emperor Azusa of Jurai had been in a good mood, just like his wifes. He needed to see his children again and had looked forward to the meeting with his great grand child. But now his good mood was disappearing very fast.

He was standing in the center of the huge wooden bridge of the _Throne_, the flagship of the Jurian fleet and the most powerful Jurian vessel after _Tsunami _andLady Setos ship, looking at the great holographic displays with a growing frown on his face.

First there was a Centauri fleet. No doubt that Catagia was trying to get Colony 0315, or Earth, under his control after the Centauri had lost a good part of their fleet to the Narn in the second Narn Independence. All that was required was a few threats and the Centauri would get away with their tails between their legs.

The Minbari fleet was another matter. Azusa knew that it would come to a war between the Galactic Union and the Federation sooner or later, but he preferred it to be later. As soon as he had pushed either his son or his great grandson onto the throne that was. So he would need to remind the Minbari that they were in violation of the Protected Planets Treaty, they had signed too, as diplomatically as possible.

Than there was also this ugly tentacled brick of a ship hanging in space between Earth and its natural satellite. _Throne_ had run the data of the ship through the Imperial data bases and found no match. The ship was unknown to the space tree. And according to the scans, the ship was very powerful. More powerful than the Shargoti of the Minbari, but less powerful than one of the 2nd gen trees escorting the _Throne_.

Maybe it was one of Washuu's experiments?

"Your Majesty," the captain of the _Throne_ said," We have found debris of several Doranian Cruisers in a low orbit around Colon 0315."

"Doranians?" he asked and his frown deepened.

"It seems like they have attacked the planet, we also found several Impacts on the surface of the planet, not to mention that a good number of the news channels of the planet are repeating news about the attack."

"And?"

"It seems that the unknown ship destroyed the Doranian Cruisers."

Azusa nodded.

"Good. We are going to deal with the Doranians on our way home. They need to be reminded of the Protected Planets Treaty and that Jurai doesn't make empty threats."

"Yes, my liege."

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Tar Molari swallowed, hard. He was in neck deep shit and he knew it. The unknown ship just had to tell the Jurians about what had happened and he and his fleet would be history.

He tried to put up a brave front as he gave his next order.

"Set course for Centauri Prime," he said.

This was a situation he just couldn't win.

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It was confused as it left Slipsteam, hidden behind the most advanced stealth field in the Galaxy. Its masters had told it to deal with just one ship that was most likely between the Minbari and the Jurians in level, but they had never said anything about having to deal with Minbari and Jurians too.

The confusion was only for a few moments, until it chose the logical way to solve this problem. It knew that its Masters wanted a war between the Jurians and the Minbari, a war that would end the debate with the Vorlons once and for all time. And this was the perfect way to start this war.

Slowly, still hidden behind its stealth field, it moves closer to the _Throne_ until it was only a few hundred meters beneath its bow. Not it was time to wait for the right moment.

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"The Centauri are changing their course."

Tenchi shook his head, somehow he knew that something like that would have happened. Back in the EA-verse, the Centauri hadn't helped Earth Alliance against the Minbari, why would they chose to fight either Jurians or Minbari in this one? Especially when they were out gunned?

He looked at the tactical display. The _Throne_ and her escorts and the Minbari were taking positions so that they were able to fire at both _Dark_ _Knight_ and he other fleet. It was the only thing they could do.

"_Coronado_ docked in Hangar 2," Dark Knight informed him and he nodded.

"I want Setsuna here ASAP."

He continued to look back at the tactical display, hoping that the others hadn't noticed the Coronado getting up from the moon.

"Sir, the _Throne_ is contacting us. The Emperor wants to speak with you."

Tenchi frowned.

"Here goes nothing," he said silently, but loud enough for everyone to hear..

He dropped his disguise as man in his forties and got the stares from every person in Command. He smiled at his new crew slightly.

"Open the channel," he said and looked at the main screen.

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"This is Commodore Tenchi Masaki of the _Dark_ _Knight_. I read you, _Throne_."

Azusa controlled himself too much as that most people would see the emotions raging in him as he looked at the holographic display of the com channel with the unknown ship, _Dark_ _Knight_. People who knew how to read people however would notice a very slight ticking of his eyebrow as well as the display of several emotions that could be seen in his eyes.

First came surprise about the fact that he saw his great grand son sitting on the bridge of a ship that was completely unknown to Imperial databases. The next was partial rage about the uniform Tenchi was wearing, he shouldn't wear a uniform that was so ugly and definitely not of Jurian origin. Following the rage was a certain pride, mixed with a little bit of insecurity, about the fact that Tenchi called himself Commodore, which was one of the higher ranks in the Imperial Navy. The last emotion that could be read in his eyes however was a strong curiosity.

How had Tenchi gotten this ugly brick of a ship? What had he been up to and several other questions were racing through Azusa's head, but he knew that he would get an answer to his questions. For the moment, he forgot about the Minbari fleet.

Azusa could see with that Tenchi had grown up, since the last time he had seen him. As Jurians grew up on a slow pace compared to the humans from Earth and now that Tenchi was the avatar of Tsunami, he would only age as fast as a Jurian. So every little change in a child's bearing and behavior was a indication of him or her having grown up sowhat.

As he saw that Tenchi had grown up, he also saw that he had been forced to grow up by something. While he was curious what it had been, he knew that he would get his answer later.

Tenchi also had this certain air around him. The air of someone who was used to being in command, combined with his rank it meant that Tenchi had a longer time in some sort of military behind him. So it was possible that what ever had caused him to grow up, had to do with the military.

Azusa was pretty sure that, while being short lived, someone would need some time to get such high in a command chain on Earth. And there hadn't been a major conflict on Earth since several years ago that had involved the island chain of Japan on a greater scale. And when this last war had happened, Tenchi hadn't even discovered Ryoko.

Azusa called himself an informed man, he had to be as the head of an Empire and the Union. He knew most of the things that were going on on Earth, but somehow he knew that something was missing in his informations.

Out of the corners of his eyes he looked at his wifes and they mirrored his surprised in a much more open way, through Fuhano hid her surprise better than Misaki. He could already see Misaki scowling at Tenchi for being the commander of such an ugly ship.

There was something else that was strange to Azusa. He couldn't only see Tenchi's face but also a good part of the bridge, including several members of the bridge crew. And the crewmen he could see didn't look like they were Jurian or Japanese. They were also clothed in uniform Azusa identified as American, if his memory about Earth and its military served him right.

"Hello, Tenchi," Azusa finally answered with a smile on his face.

Behind Tenchi a woman in slinky black leather suddenly burst through a door.

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Setsuna grit her teeth as she hurried towards the bridge. It was still strange to see so many crewmen in the formally empty corridors of _Dark_ _Knight_.

'And it really feels strange,' _Dark_ _Knight_ added her own two cents and Setsuna ignored it for the moment.

The Minbari and Jurian ships were more concerning. And there was something else. Something she could feel close to the Jurian ships. It was something that was similar, but for the love of god, she couldn't tell what it was.

For a moment she hooked herself up with _Dark_ _Knight_ sensors, trying to find out what caused her feeling of dread. Than she brushed it away. She was just out of one of the turbo lifts and in front of the door to the bridge as it hit her.

'Shadows', she thought and it alarmed _Dark_ _Knight._

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'Shadows', was the thing Tenchi heard in his mind at the same time as his great grand father greeted him.

His reaction was predicable.

"Change heading to 112.334," he ordered on English, fully well knowing that Azusa didn't really speak this language," Arm all weapons, prepare Alpha Strike. Launch the Thunderbolts."

Several coordinates came after that and the bridge crew, while still a bit confused about the fact that their commander had turned into a 18 year old, acted. The weapons control crew wondered why the hell they should fire at empty space beneath the large ship, the _Throne_.

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Dukhat glanced at the screen. The commander of his ship had tole him that the Throne had initiated a com channel with the unknown ship, not all that surprising, considering that this was essentially Jurian controlled space.

Suddenly the unknown ship got into action. Energy concentrations started to raise and a point between the large spines started to glow as lightning lanced out from the tips. The classical moments before the Quantum Discharge Cannon would fire. The spines on the smaller turrets mirrored the activation sequence.

The ship also turned about in a sudden leap, faster than anything of its size should be able to move, the weapons pointing towards the Throne. One moment, it pointed its weapons to the space beneath the Throne...

Then three Light Hawk Wings spread out in front of the unknown ship and smaller craft were getting away from it. And towards the same part of space.

Dukhat held his breath. This could end badly.

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Hidden in its cabin, the Kosh narrowed the lens of its Encounter suit as it followed the happenings outside with the sensors of its suit, tied into the data network of the Shargoti.

The unknown ship had many characteristics of a Vorlon ship, but at the same time a great number of other things that went against everything of Vorlon design.

The lens narrowed further as it saw how the ship activated a Quantum Discharge Cannon and smaller turreted variants of the same weapon before turning about to face the Jurian flagship. It would be a pity if the unknown ship would attack the Jurian ship, but that would ensure that the unknown ship would be destroyed.

The Kosh didn't like to admit it, but the Jurians were powerful. More than enough to destroy the unknown ship.

Then it noticed how the weapons were aligned. It would shoot at a spot beneath the Jurian ship. Why?

As Light Hawk Wings flared into life, it reached out and the lens closed as the Encounter suit rocked in shock.

The lens opened again, light shining out to illuminate the dark cabin.

"Shadows."

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Tar Molari swore as he looked at the sensory screen. The unknown ship was making itself ready to attack the Jurians. It was now or never. They could come back later and pull together the remains.

"Jump to Slipstream," he ordered and not a second later the Centauri ships disappeared from the Solar System.

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The Battle Crab was giddy. It hated to wait. It hated to watch. It wanted to destroy something.

Suddenly something changed. The unknown Vorlon like ship activated its weapons. Could it be that it had been discovered?

No, that was not possible. Its stealth was superior to anything known in the galaxy. Even the Vorlons had problems to detect a Battle Crab.

It would have smiled as it watched how the ship angled to target the Jurian ship above. It moved away from the Jurian ship. It would be nice to see what would happen.

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"What are you doing?" Azusa demanded as he watched how _Dark_ _Knight_ leveled its weapons at the _Throne_.

The crew acted like it was trained to do and the other Jurian ships did the same. While Azusa was again surprised that a non-Jurian ship could activate Light Hawk Wings, the Jurian ships did the same, their weapons activating and daring _Dark_ _Knight_ to fire.

"Not shooting you," Tenchi's voice came over the com channel, sending a slight shiver down Azusa's spine.

"Don't fire," Azusa ordered.


	14. Chapter 14

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 13

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Tenchi could feel the burning heat of _Dark_ _Knight_ hate towards the Shadows hovering in the back of his mind. It only served to fuel his own hate on them. They had helped Clarke, one of the worst human scum since the 20th century. He hated them, because they had forced the Earth Civil War, a war where he had lost a few friends. He hated them generally because they were what they were.

He couldn't see it, but his eyes seemed to glow in an inner fire as he glared at the screen and at the part of the screen where the Shadow should be.

"Slowly," he heard Setsunas voice, but didn't respond to it.

_Dark_ _Knight_ weapons got to the maximum load and were ready to fire as he looked at Setsuna for a moment. He could see the same determination in her eyes as he could feel in DK, beside her hate.

"Full Alpha Strike," he simply said without raising his voice, but everyone in the bridge crew could feel something cold run down their spines.

"Fire."

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From the outside nothing happened much as Tenchi gave his order. But only for a moment.

It was a glorious display of destructive forces as Dark Knight fires her Alpha Strike and continued it.

The two G.O.D. Ion Cannons were the first to lance out at the stealthed Battle Crab, immediately followed by the blast of the large Quantum Discharge Cannon and the blasts of smaller Discharge Turrets and Railguns. Four large conventional missiles, each as long as a GP patrol boat, left the twin launchers of the Vorlon-hybrid Warlock and streaked out towards the Shadow ship.

The Shadow Battle Crab literally didn't know what hit it, as the first Quantum Discharge served several spines from its body, followed by the Ion Beams slamming into its armor, eating through it and destroying its shield generator in a secondary explosion.

With a loud mental scream its stealth collapsed and it lashed out at the ship that dared to attack and injure it.

A massive dark violet Disintegator beam, normally enough to slice through any shield and the ship behind it, slammed into _Dark_ _Knights_ Light Hawk Wings, sending lightnings through it as the beam hit, but held.

More Ion beams and Quantum Discharges hit the massive black body of the ship eating large chunks out of its hull and serving spines from the ship.

The Battle Crab continued to scream out in pain and slowly lost what little focus it had since the beginning of the Alpha Strike. It lashed out in pain at any target that seemed appropriate. It sliced through a gap between the Light Hawk Wings of one of the smaller 2nd Generation trees, serving part of its starboard drive cluster. Another beam went wide and completely destroyed a Minbari Tinashi.

But that was all it was able to claim as the repeated strikes from Dark Knight took their toll. The last thing it could do was to launch a ball of the small fighters it carried. They would be all needed to deal with the ships here, as no race cared much about the concept of fighters and point defense.

The last the Battle Crab saw were four strange objects heading towards it, before all went white in the glowing ball of a 10 Megaton fusion detonation. Its last loud mental scream was immediately stopped.

The shock wave of the thermo nuclear detonation from four missiles burned away the remains of the large Battle Crab, but ten fighters were able to get out of range before the nuclear fire ate them.

The fighters streaked out towards the vessel that had destroyed their mother ship, but they soon were facing something else.

_Dark_ _Knight_ had a full load of 48 Thunderbolts and even through they were piloted by fighter pilots that weren't exactly used to their new flights, they still were the best Earth could offer. And the Shadow fighters were still dazed by the death of their Mothership as the furball began.

Rapid fire plasma cannons meet a Quantum Bold cannon.

It was one of the most intense furballs ever seen in space. In fact, it may as well have been the first furball ever.

Salvos from the Plasma Cannons found their mark, burning into low powered shields, even a few bolts managing to burn through the shields before slamming into the armor of the Shadows fighters, maybe the only armor in the Galaxy deserving to be called armor.

In the end all ten Shadow fighters were destroyed and the pilots and weapons system officers of seven Thunderbolts floating in space inside their cockpits-turned-escape-pods.

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The com channel hadn't been turned off as the fight began, and while Azusa was looking at the new tactical display, he also got a look at the bridge of _Dark_ _Knight_. He saw the grim determination on Tenchi's face and again he shuddered.

"Full Alpha Strike," he heard Tenchi say, wondering what an Alpha Strike was.

"Fire."

Azusa's not spoken question was answered by all of _Dark_ _Knight_ forwards firing weapons opening fire. For a moment Azusa was ready to feel the _Throne_ rock, while the weapons of _Dark_ _Knight_ slammed into the Light Hawk Wings. But the ship didn't shake and the weapons beams passed under _Throne_ only to meet something invisible a kilometer away from the ventral hull.

He shuddered as a long drawn wail echoed through his mind and something appeared beneath the _Throne_. Whatever it was it was of a black color that seemed to swallow all light. Some of the bridge crew members of the _Throne_ collapsed as the wail went through their minds, while the others tried to get any thing they could from the sensors.

The black spider like ship answered in kind, firing a dark violet beam of energy at _Dark_ _Knight_, but the beam was stopped by the Light Hawk Wings, lightnings dancing across the Wings surface.

Azusa swallowed dry as energy balances of the beams from both _Dark_ _Knight_ and the black spider were displayed. The energy produced by the beams were insane. While he was sure that any Light Hawk Wing could survive the weapons, he doubted that another ship could.

The black spider slowly lost its focus on _Dark_ _Knight_, one of the violet beams managed to strike through a seam in the Light Hawk Wings of an escort of the _Throne_, serving part of its starboard drive cluster from the rest of the ship, while another beam sliced through the shield of a Minbari Tinashi as it it wasn't there, destroying the ship as its Singularity reactor lost containment.

For a moment, something dropped beneath the black spider before the _Thrones_ sensors were blinded by the close energy flash of several exploding fusion bombs, rocking the massive _Throne_ even through the Light Hawk Wings.

As the sensors could receive again, the battle had ended, the small craft from Dark Knight were moving back to their Mothership, while Azusa idly wondered why they had been away from it anyway. He failed to notice that several of the small craft were missing and that some were towing escape pods.

Azusa couldn't see himself, but he was pale from the witnessed not-even-thirty-second-fight, just like everyone else as he faced Tenchi again.

"Please explain me what just happened," he said with a slightly shaking voice.

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Dukhat swallowed after witnessing the pretty one sided fight. He had been able to identify the black spider like ship beneath the _Throne_.

"Shadows."

Dukhat, while still being a member of the Religious Caste, knew that he was by far the most logical Minbari in the Gray Council, but it still was a shock to see an unknown ship, even if it seemed to be partly Vorlon, destroy a Shadow ship.

The shock at seeing the worst nightmare of the Minbari in reality, was something that was still present in the crew as Dukhat heard the sounds of a Vorlon encounter suit behind himself.

"We leave," the electronic voice of the Kosh said.

Dukhat turned around to look at the Kosh.

"But..."

"We leave," the Kosh said again before turning himself, leaving the bridge.

Dukhat swallowed again. While he had hoped not to fight the unknown ship, he was disturbed at the fact that the ship had destroyed a Shadow, something that only the Minbari should be able to do, and the Kosh. It had ordered them to leave and so the Minbari wouldn't learn anything about the ship, besides what he had witnessed.

"Later," he muttered to himself." Later."

He knew that the screams of the Shadow ship would haunt his dreams for the future.

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Tenchi looked at the screen in front of him. He knew that he couldn't tell Azusa the truth about the Shadows. Neither could he really tell his crew and Earth about them. He had had a dialog with Nathan about that and Nathan affirmed his decision. But neither of them had thought that the Shadows would really show up this fast.

Now Tenchi had to prove once again that he was fast on his feet.

"It was one of Kagatos creations," he said, not too fast." I already had to deal with them before coming back."

Essentially the last part was true. He had dealt with the Shadows during the Shadow War, even through that was years ago, at least from his point of view.

'Smooth bullshitting,' he could hear Setsuna in the back of his mind, but ignored her, seeing how Azusa's face went white before getting red.

"Kagato," the Jurian Emperor cursed." How many of these things are there?"

Tenchi shook his head. It looked as if his BS was falling on fertile ground.

"I don't know. Neither Ryoko, nor Washuu seem to know anything about them. And I just encountered this and another."

Azusa looked at Tenchi with a fire in his eyes, telling Tenchi that Azusa would try and actively hunt down Shadows.

"They got very good cloaking devices," Tenchi said." Better than the Minbari."

Azusa actively growled.

"Everything can be breached," he said before calming down sowhat.

"Maybe you can now tell me where you got that ship?"

Tenchi smiled a bit.

"I think we shouldn't do it over a com channel. How about your majesty coming over? I would like to show you my ship."

Azusa looked at his off-screen wifes for a moment, before nodding.

"We will be over in a short time."

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Washuu looked at the man in front of her and than at the screen. Marco Ramius interested her. He was maybe the epitome of Earth's mankind. He had done what he thought was right, fought overwhelming odds and was triumphant, while making sure that the world saw what they wanted or needed to see.

"I want to be in command again," he had said with a sigh." But it would only be for a short time."

Washuu had asked why and Ramius had answered that he had an inoperable form of cancer, he would live for several years, but he would go down slowly. The scans Washuu had made told her that the human medics were true about that, even she would have problems to remove the tumor, but it would be possible.

It also had given her a reason to renew her studies of the Earth human genome. What she had found was very interesting. A great number of inactive genes spread over all chromosomes could be found in not just Ramius DNA, but also in the CNA of the people who had received the rapid schooling. She had taken the DNA samples to better adjust the schooling systems.

She had run several simulations on the genes, trying to find out what they would do if they were activated. The results also had been interesting. An activation of the genes would increase strength and nerve speed by about ten to twenty percent. Other changes were in the more active immune system, it would deal with diseases more easily, there was even the possibility that it would be able to weaken the effects of AIDS and even Ebola. There was also the speed up regeneration of wounds. The biggest change was the longer life. Maybe 600 years, maybe slightly longer.

As she had seen the results for the first time, she had felt something she couldn't explain. A desire to activate these genes in every human on Earth.

There it was again. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in deep.

She had only spoken with Ramius about the genes, as activating them would make it more easy to operate the cancer. After some thought he had given her permission to activate them.

This was now why he was floating in a glass tube in front of her. It sounded strange, but since she had activated the genes, he had actually gotten younger and was now looking like he was about 30 years old. She chuckled as she had noticed that Ramius looked like Sean Connery while he had played James Bond.

Now it was time for the operation. She pressed a sensory button and several specially programmed nano machines were pressed into Ramius' blood. They would do the job. While he would recover, she would perform a rapid schooling for him.

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"... announced today that the Thyssen-Krupp Marine Systems AG are going to build the first European shipyard for atmospheric capable spaceships, such as the Monsoon class gunboat and a civil fright Monsoon variant, the Kogge. The new shipyard will be build in Emden, Germany, and it is planned to finish the first earth build European Space Defense space ships in seven month. In other news..."

zap

"...that the Philadelphia Naval Shipyards will be put back into full service after being officially closed six years ago. This will cause a great new investment into Philadelphia as the Department of Defense announced that more than 40.000 workers will be needed to get the production of Earth build space ships under way. This will be the highest number of employees since World War II."

zap

"...we will not stand by while aliens start to breath down our necks and threaten with the destruction of Earth. Or worse slavery! The galaxy out there isn't a pretty place! It won't ever be! This is the real world! NOT STAR TREK!"

zap

"Let us pray brothers and sisters. Let us pray that our brave men in space will protect us from heretic..."

zap

"... I am standing here in the ruins of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. A large number of volunteers are still trying to find one of the one thousand missing. But chances of finding them is not high."

zap

"... two hours ago. With that the National Republic of China is the sixth nation with a beginning space fleet. - One moment. - I'm just learning that the Republic of China under General Luo Cong and the remains of the Peoples Republic of China also announced to form a space fleet. This will certainly change the pace of the conflict over the remains of the old Peoples Republic of China."

zap

"... announced by Heckler & Koch. They are now the first cooperation to build hand held particle weapons. But if the H&K PPC-1 will be as successful as their other products remains to be seen."

zap

"... In fact, I just see how the Malaysian Task Force is leaving the Fleet Harbor of..."

zap

"... is the fourth day of the UN talk about the formation of a multinational Earth Defense Force. Observers tell that mostly African nations..."

zap

"...we have just received news from NORAD that ten minutes ago, several fleets of unknown ships have approached Earth. One of these fleets has withdrawn very fast, while a second fleet withdrew after witnessing a brief and intense fight between _Dark_ _Knight_ and an up-to-date unknown ship that doesn't seem to belong to either of the three fleets. We now go to Dave McCollin at NORAD. Dave?"


	15. Chapter 15

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 14

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The Jurian shuttle was a grateful affair. Like the large Treeships, it was essentially build from the bark of the Jurian Imperial Trees. In itself the bark was stronger than most alloys created by the races of the Galaxy. It was quite a sight to see the shuttle swoop into the hangar of _Dark_ _Knight_ and than set down like a feather.

Inside the shuttle were Emperor Azusa, his wifes Fuhano and Misaki and several Jurian Marines as escort.

Azusa sighed a little as the hangar bay was pressurized, wondering why Washuu hadn't added forcefields to the bay design if she had build this ship. A short glance to his wives showed him that Fuhano frowned and Misaki looked a bit down. He knew how much Misaki liked cute things, and neither the appearance of this ship nor its interior was very 'cute'. In fact it violated every design philosophy in the Galaxy.

As Azusa looked outside, he saw hard edges, bare panels, bare illumination and all was covered by the same strange yellow-orange stuff as the outside if the ship. Azusa had also noticed another thing, or rather he had noticed it as the shuttle had swept into the hangar. He had seen two sets of hangar bay doors and they were about twelve meters apart. Azusa wondered for a moment why, but he was shaken from his thoughts as the airlock of the shuttle opened and the first four of his eight Marines left the shuttle.

Azusa left the shuttle with his wifes following him, but he was disappointed. He had thought that Tenchi would prepare a welcoming ceremony for him, but he hadn't. In fact, Tenchi hadn't even come himself. There was just a single man standing in the airlock leading into the interior of the ship. The man was dressed in the same rather plain uniform the military on Earth seemed to be so fond of.

The man didn't even seemed to dignify Azusa with a reaction, as he frowned at him, something that was getting a reaction from the Jurian Marines, who winced slightly. The man came closer and saluted sharply at Azusa.

"Your Majesty," the man said." I'm Lieutenant Commander Mark Abrams, the adjutant of Commodore Masaki. He ordered me to lead you to the briefing room."

Commander Abrams didn't react much as most of the Marines scowled at him and his lack of respect, like the Emperor was used to. Abrams looked back at the Marines, giving them not much more than an indifferent glare.

"I see," Azusa said and held his face devoid of emotions.

It was unsettling to see someone not being intimidated by himself. But at the same time it was refreshing, that someone didn't kiss his feet the first time he met them.

"You escorts won't be needed, sir," Abrams said.

Than he turned towards the airlock.

"Please follow me."

Azusa glanced at his wifes. Both of them smiled a little at the Commander, Fuhano less than Misaki, and Azusa knew that they had much about the same thoughts as him. He nodded towards the Marines, the little nod telling them to remain behind, as Azusa and his wifes followed Abrams.

They stepped through the airlock and into a brightly lit and mostly bare corridor. Much like the hangar it wasn't following known design rules. There weren't any artworks on the walls, nothing to show of art. Nothing, just bare walls, panels and the occasional small screen and speaker in the wall. Azusa noticed that the screens also didn't show the known symbols of Intercosmo, the Jurian language, only the crude characters of the Terran alphabet.

As they walked along the corridors, following Commander Abrams, crewmen hurried along, talking to each other and generally seemed to just ignore the Emperor and his wifes. Another thing they weren't used to.

Walking past an open door, they got a good look at a large room that seemed to be some sort of rec-area. Several of the soldiers in the plain uniforms or blue one piece suits were sitting around, some of them on front of a screen that showed some kind of sports match, if Azusa interpreted their cheers right.

Another thing was noticeable, the lack of ramps like they were used on Jurian ships. They had to enter some sort of elevator twice to get to the right deck.

The whole walk through the ships had needed about ten minutes and Commander Abrams, hadn't talked to Azusa or his wifes from himself, through he had answered some questions.

"Here we are, sir."

Abrams opened a door to a rather comfortable looking room, the only that had in fact at least a few artworks hanging in it. The room was lined by red colored wood, a large display in one wall showing the space outside the ship instead of a window. A large table stood in the center, surrounded by a number of leather chairs. There was also a small rather pathetic looking potted plant sitting in a corner.

The artworks on the walls were rather plain paintings, two of them showing light gray colored ships that looked like _Dark_ _Knight_, just without the spines in the front. And one of them showed one of these ships, coming from a strange object, attacking a Minbari Sharlin. Two other paintings showed groups of strange X-shaped crafts.

Azusa frowned again, as he noticed the definite lack of Tenchi in the room. He turned to Abrams, who smiled a little.

"The Commodore will be with you in a moment," Abrams said and left the room.

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"Okay, I owe you twenty bucks," Setsuna said and shook her head.

Tenchi just grinned a little, as the approached the briefing room.

"I told you that he would be proud in me."

"And I still can't see why. If anything he should be angry. But it seems he did the same to his father, when he was in the Jurian fleet..."

The door opened in front of them and from one moment to the other, they were all business.

"Sorry for the delay," Tenchi said and bowed slightly in front of Azusa." I had to deal with NORAD and the US President, as well as a number of European Union heads of states."

This was essentially true, but he had delegated most of the explaining to the President and the others as _Dark_ _Knight_, who had a very convincing artificial version of him to deal with these things. Like Azusa the people on Earth were fed the story about Kagato's creations, as well as an explanation who Kagato used to be.

Than he pointed at Setsuna.

"My XO, Setsuna Mejou."

Like Tenchi she bowed slightly at Azusa and his wives.

"A pleasure to meet you, your majesties."

Azusa glared at Tenchi for a moment and a look to his great grand mothers showed Tenchi that Misaki frowned as she looked around in the sparsely decorated room, while Fuhano hid most of her emotions.

"The pleasure is mine," Azusa said and it spoke much of his self control not to leer at the telepath in the very skintight black leather.

'Nice to have this effect on men,' Setsuna said in Tenchi's mind, only to get a mental frown from _Dark_ _Knight_.

'You just wait until Washuu finishes my Avatars...'

'Of cause I am,' Setsuna gave back with the mental analogy of a drool.

'Silence you two,' Tenchi interrupted.

"I think you want to hear why I am the commander of this ship."

Azusa wanted to say something, but Misaki was faster.

"Yes," she said." This ship is so ugly that I doubt that Washuu would build something like this. It is a bump flying brick with tentacles. And all this strange orange stuff everywhere. You would..."

"WHAT?"

A loud voice interrupted the beginning of Misaki's rant. The large screen, previously showing the space outside, was now showing a larger than life image of a very enraged female. Said female had a very attractive face, through distorted by her range, blazing red eyes, literally blazing even, and a shock of untamed flaming red hair held in bay by a pair of horns curling from her forehead to the back of her head. And than there were the pointed ears poking through the mob of hair.

"I AM NOT UGLY! YOU UNGREATFUL LITTLE..."

The avatar of _Dark_ _Knight_ just wanted to start insulting the Empress of Jurai, as Tenchi shot a hard glare at the screen and the image of the enraged avatar of his ship.

"Stop it, right now," he simply said without raising his voice.

Knight blinked a few times and looked at Tenchi before the image visibly deflated.

"but... but... she called me ugly" the now chibi-fied pouting image proclaimed.

Tenchi sighed and he let himself drop into one of the leather chairs. He looked back at the shell shocked Misaki, a staring Azusa and a blinking Fuhano.

"Sorry 'bout that," he said with another sigh." May I introduce _Dark_ _Knight_, the intelligence of this ship. But calling her ugly is just about the same as calling someone like Ayeka or Ryoko fat."

Azusa grumbled something about 'woman' under his breath and shook his head. He glanced at the still pouting chibi of _Dark_ _Knight_.

"You wanted to tell us how you came to this... magnificent... ship."

Tenchi rolled his eyes at Azusa and started to explain how he ended up in another reality, how he was drafted into Earth Force and fought against the Minbari, a story where Azusa listened very interested and had a few more questions, the time after that, Clarke, Babylon 5 and finally ended how he got command of the old _Dark_ _Knight_. All this time he didn't say anything about Vorlons or Shadows.

"About six years ago, from my point of view, me and my old crew were ordered to pick up a derelict space ship from an ancient race from an old battlefield. Ships were pretty thin back than, during the Drahk War and the EFNI hoped to find some new systems in the wreckage. And I was the only one close to the battlefield. So we picked it up and forgot about it when we were called to defend a colony from the Drahk.

"So the wreckage sat in one of the hangars for days and had time to infect and assimilate some of the technology. As we noticed what was happening, the derelict ship had broken down completely and fused with about ten percent of the ship.

"You know, the derelict was nearly completely organic and used to be about as intelligent as a dog. It needed four month to completely fuse with the whole ship and with the main computer core, it formed a full fledged intelligence. A female at that.

"The crew left because they found it creepy and were unnerved by it. I was the only one left behind, because the ship had bonded to me. Maybe it was because I'm at least partly Jurian, maybe something else, I don't know. _Dark_ _Knight_ doesn't need a crew, but with a crew she runs more effective."

Behind Tenchi the image of Dark Knight still pouted, but now she had dropped the chibi form, showing of a perfect body, dressed in a less skintight, creamy white colored version of Setsuna's leather outfit.

"It was about four years later that the EFNI discovered the truth about me, when _Knight_ used my ablity to create Light Hawk Wings to shield herself against a Drakh attack. I was forced to leave Earth Force and _Knight_ followed naturally.

"I also meet Setsuna back than and took her aboard. Than a week ago, I chose that it was time to come back home. And here I am, with _Dark_ _Knight_ and Setsuna."

Azusa nodded and leaned back in thought.

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Washuu chuckled as she looked at her screen. The vats with the pair of Avatars for _Dark_ _Knight_ were almost ready. Tenchi and Setsuna wouldn't know what hit them, when the two were finished.

_Dark_ _Knight_ had been so nice and allowed her to get a few tissue samples. She also downloaded most of the files about herself into a data crystal for Washuu to use. The data provided her with enough information to create the Avatars.

Washuu didn't really believe in robotic systems, so she had gone and created biological Avatars, mixing the genes of the tissue samples with human and Jurian DNA, as well as with a little Masu. They would be capable of independent thought, but they would need a personality, that would be downloaded into them. Some tinkering and the Avatars were looking exactly how _Dark_ _Knight_ wanted them to look like. Dark Knight had already given them names.

D was the more normal looking, attractive face with high cheek bones, lush red lips, brown eyes and black hair with red highlights. Add a very attractive body to it and you got a body men would die for.

K was the other, less normal looking. She shared the same basic face with D, but that was all, as K had red eyes and a mob of red hair held in bay by a pair of horns curling from her forehead to the back of her head. And than there were the pointed ears poking through the mob of hair.

Washuu chuckled as she remembered the request of Dark Knight to get them also specific clothes.

K would get a version of Setsuna's outfit. Creamy white in color and less tight around the upper body. And there would be two sets of latin script running up the right and left leg. The right leg was inscripted 'Setsuna' in black letters, while the left was inscripted 'Tenchi' in red and only half the size of the black letters.

D on the other side would get much the same outfit as Motoko Kusanagi wore in the first few episode of 'Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex'. Again there would be two sets of latin script running up the right and left leg. The right leg was inscripted 'Tenchi' in black letters, while the left was inscripted 'Setsuna' in red and only half the size of the black letters.

Both wasn't really all that much of a problem to create.

She changed the view and took a look at Ramius. She had talked to Admiral Bart Mancuso, currently COMSUBPAC of the US Navy, who was a friend of Ramius.

Mancuso was currently building up something that was similar to the submarine forces of the US in space. It called for heavily stealthed space ships and Washuu had already promised that she would build several ships using advanced ECM/ECCM technologies and stealth materials from the Earth Force Database. Surprisingly these systems would work a little better against galactic technology than they worked in the EF-universe. The stealth ships Washuu build, would be only a little inferior to Minbari stealth.

Washuu knew she could do better, but Tenchi had told her explicit to use only EF-tech with drives and shields on the same level.

One of the Stealth ships was the Vigilante class cutter, as they were perfect for this form of use. They presented very minimal profiles and still had the firepower to take on a fair amount of the galaxies Quantum 2 level ships of her size class. The rest would be four Monsoons.

But the Vigilante, already named _Nautilus_ by Mancuso, would be a little more. The Admiral had already said that, until further notice, the _Nautilus_ would remain the largest ship in the part of the future space fleet he build up. So she would get a handpicked crew, the best of the best in the submarine fleet and the best commander he could imagine. Ramius.

But as Ramius would be changed in this, something Mancuso knew, they had agreed to set up a new identity for him, as Marco Ramsey. Washuu had already forged most of the paper work and it looked like Marco Ramsey had always existed.

It would be interesting to see what would happen with Marco and his new ship.

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Ryuji Kisuragi frowned in his quarters. He hadn't known that a Battle Crab would be here, nor that it was ordered to attack Colony 0315 because of that ship, _Dark_ _Knight_. He still could remember the screams of pain from the crabs and how it had affected his associates, his family.

Even more he had been surprised that they had sensed a telepath aboard _Dark_ _Knight_ and how it had discovered the Battle Crab. They were little telepaths in the galaxy and none of them would even get to such a backwater planet such as Colony 0315.

While he knew that the war could have been started with a shoot out between the _Throne_ and the Minbari, neither he nor his associates had wanted this. While they were working towards a war, the situation would need to be further destabilized in its form. And that was Kisuragi's job to make sure.

Unfortunately the planned assassination of the Prince and the Crowned Prince of Jurai down on the Planet wouldn't work anymore. Not with a Teep out there.

Suddenly a thought crossed his mind. He knew of several telepathic races in the Federation. Maybe it would be possible to stage several incident involving telepaths of these races? Raise the fear from telepaths in the Union? And as a side effect against the Federation?

He would need to talk to his superior in his family.

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Deep within the Kuiper Belt, outside of Pluto's orbit, a huge group of objects hung, clustered around each other, but still each a hundred thousand kilometers distant to each other. On closer inspection, it was possible to see the dark green surface and the leafy structure. Slowly rotating around one axis, each object was balancing 10.000 kilometer long tethers against each other.

As they moved through space, the long conductive structures of the three meter thick tethers were inducting current because of the movements through the magnetic field of Sol. The current was directed towards the objects, where it held them alive.

Beneath the dark green surface, branches and trunks were filling space over several kilometers, creating large spaces between them, large enough to hold even a huge space ship. An interesting feature of the branches and trunks were that they were shaped like a ship could move towards them and dock.

Following deeper down, the trunks hit the surface of something that looked like an asteroid or comet nucleus, the black surface indicating a C-type asteroid. Roots were spreading between the trunks and burrowed deep into the asteroid.

An educated human from Earth would be able to identify these objects as Dyson Tree. They called themselves Wanderers through.

One of these Wanderers was Shabazza, with a hundred years a young Tree, considered a shoot by his elders. For the last fifty years, ever since he had moved close to Earth in the last Conjunction, he had used his abilities to receive radio waves to listen to the radio noise coming from the human planet.

When he listened to Earth, he always had to remember the stories from his Elders, of the time before the Fall, after the Ancients had created their race. The stories of these times showed everyone a better time, times where a Wanderer could spread its leafs towards the sun and receive more than enough energy to survive without needing to use the tethers.

He sighed. He knew that it was time for the next Conjunction, the time where the Wanderers would move towards the inner system for about ten Earth years until they had enough energy resources for the next fifty years or so of hiding in the outer system from the old Enemies that had destroyed the Ancients.

But the Council of Elders didn't want to move this soon. What had happened in the inner system was troubling them. First the invasion from outside the system, now the ship that had defeated the invaders. It concerned the Elders and they didn't want to move into the inner system just yet.

But Shabazza and a number of older shoots like him, were thinking different, they were still remembering the old stories very good and they wanted to live like that, without fear from themselves and their kind.

Laser links flashed between the young Wanderers, consolidating their plans. Finally the time had come. As one they began to move. Twenty of ten thousand Wanderers accelerated with ten times Earth gravity, their tethers not falling behind as they were also moved with the main body by the telekinetic powers of the Wanderers minds.

Bio-chemical lasers flashed into their path as they moved, coming from the Elders wanting them to stop, but no Elder would really destroy one of their youngsters. Soon the young rebels were out of range and moved closer to the sun.

They would need a few days until they were in the inner system.

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"I swear," one of the American sailor said." She deactivated the warm water while I was in the shower. Do you have any idea how that is?"

The people around him chuckled.

"I heard she did it to several people who were negative about her... design..."

"Women, even if they are spaceships..."

The others nodded sagely.

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Tenchi glanced at his grandfather trying to ignore the image of _Dark_ _Knight_ on the screen behind him. _Knight_ was making grimaces at Misaki while she wasn't looking and stopped when she looked behind her. Misaki was currently developing something of paranoia, glancing over her shoulder every so often.

Afte talking over several things, like not coming to Jurai to let the Jurian scientists look at _Knight_, it was now time for something else. Tenchi knew that his plan of secretly developing Earth was doomed since the Throne had appeared. Now he could just do one thing.

"I think we should talk about the inability of the Jurian Empire to enforce their treatries."

Azusa's eyes narrowed.

"You are talking about the Doranians?"

"Them too. The Doranians attacked Earth and there wasn't any ship here that could have taken care of them. _Yagami_ is just a patrol ship, not able to take on even one Doranian Cruiser. So they proceeded to drop rocks on Earth. Than there were the Centauri. They tried to tell me that this was Centauri protected space."

Azusa frowned.

"I think I need to talk to Catagia and the Doranians."

"No you don't," Tenchi said." This is our business. Jurai failed to enforce the Protected Planets Treatry. So Earth is going to take matter into its own hands."

Azusa looked a little bit surprised.

"I have already talked to the United Nations and proposed the formation of an international Planetary Defense force. As well as handing over blueprints and other information needed to build Earth Force Technologies. It will allow Earth to develop their own low-Quantum 2 technology."

Of cause it was mid-Quantum 2 technology, but Azusa didn't need to know that.

"Washuu is already building a few ships for Earth with the techology. And with that we are going to defend Earth.

"So in the end, both the Doranians and the Centauri are our business. We are going to deal with them."

Azusa looked intensly at Tenchi. He could see that Tenchi was serious about this and that he wouldn't back down. For a moment the possibilities raced through his head. If Earth was building up its own Planetary Defense Force the Union could move in on Earth and use the facilities ofthe planet without needing to build them themselves in the case the war broke out.

"So what should I do in this case," Azusa asked.

"Earth is going to be neutral in this. We are not going to be for anyone and want to be left alone. We are not going to officially support neither the Union, nor the Federation."

Internally Azusa smiled. Tenchi had said 'officially', so he would support the Union and Jurai on an inofficial base and was most likely to turn to the Union when the war would break out.

Than he nodded.

"Okay. The Jurian Empire will grant Earth neutrality. But we are going to build up an Ambassy on Earth. And I think I have the right choice as Ambassador."

Tenchi frowned slightly. It went a little too good, but in essence he knew that he could ask Setsuna later about the surface thoughts of Azusa.

Now he just had to get them out of the system before the Monsoons and Ancient ships got into space.


	16. Chapter 16

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 15

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"... In essence the Japanese Masaki Shrine has been transformed into the first extraterrestrial ambassy on Earth. At the same time, the Japanese Emperor announced that his family has known about the existence of aliens since the early 14th century, when a Jurian prince crash landed in the Okayama prefecture and founded the Masaki shrine..."

zap

"... was announced by President Grushavoy. This is going to be the first design contest for the first Earthern design of a space borne Interceptor. One has to wonder who is going to win this one. Suchoi and Mikojan-Gurewitsch. In related news the Kremlin announced that several industrial centers will be transformed into ship yards for the new Russian Space Fleet..."

zap

"... a good number of protesters in the area of the new Jurian Ambassy, demanding explanations why Jurai hasn't helped Earth against the Doranian attack ten days ago. Ever since it is public knowledge that Earth was under the Protected Planets Treaty of the Jurian Empire, negative emotions against the Jurians..."

zap

"... is it an interesting development that a growing number of people are using the term 'Terra' as substitute for 'Earth'. The same can be said about the term 'Terran' to describe a human born on Earth, as it is certain that the Jurians are also humans..."

zap

"...As you can see, Dave, the number of Recruits for Air Force and Navy have gone up so much that there are lines of people in front of the Recruitment Offices. The number of people trying to get into the Marine Corps has not changed, while the number of new recruits for the Army has taken a nose dive..."

zap

"... in spite of the UN, as the talks about an international Earth Defense Force still don't seem to get to a point. Spokesmen of the White House and the Pentagon told about this meeting between President Ryan and representatives of the European Union, the Russian Republic, the British Commonwealth and Japan to try and speed up the UN summit..."

zap

"... have the shares taken a nosedive since Ford, Genera Motors and DaimlerCrysler have announced the production of fusion cell cars. It seems that the petrochemical industry is at the beginning of a serve crisis. Greenpeace and other environmental organizations on the other side support this step..."

zap

"...eleven days after the Doranian Attack. With that the number of causalities in Nerima have gone to more than thirty thousand people, nearly the complete population..."

zap

"... has come to the rescue. It once again shows how instable the area of the former nation of Indonesia has become with the proclamation of the Holy Republic of Aceh. But even if the Australian Navy has rescued the _Galaxy_ _Shenandoah_, other ships have been sunk by the..."

zap

"... has attacked and took over the Provinces of Ningxia and Shaanxi, while now controlling large parts of Sichuan. It seems only the presence of Indian and British troops in Tibet are preventing President Cong to attack this former province of China. In response, two more provinces have attached themselves to the National Republic of China. The remains of the Peoples Republic of China on the other hand are still trying to keep together as good as possible..."

zap

"... Dalai Lama had finally returned to the Potala Palace in Lhasa..."

zap

----------------------------------------------------------------

It was an unequal battle he witnessed on the holographic plot table. Two Ancient battleships, seven Monsoons and a single Lupo against a full Minbari battle group, two Shargoti, about six Sharlin, several Tanashi, Linsharas and White Stars.

He watched as the Minbari opened fire, their fire slamming into the shields of the Ancient ships, while they more or less ignored the Lupo and the Monsoons.

16 Thunderbolts detached from the Lupo, while the Monsoons disappeared completely, only to reappear in the back of the Minbari fleet. The two Assault Vectors opened fire, their massive Quantum Discharge weapons unloading their energies into the shields of the two Shargoti, together with the Ion Pulse and Antimatter beam weapons of theirs.

The Monsoons behind the fleet opened fire at the same time, their downsized GOD Particle weapons draining the shields of the White Stars. The Lupo just sat there, all of its weapons used to track and intercept the Minbari fire, something normally only Interceptors did.

Taking more punishment than the shields could take, secondary detonations ripped through the lower fins of the two Shargotis crippling them only to have be ripped to shreds by another impact of the Quantum Discharge Cannons.

The Monsoons were also taking the White Stars by surprise, the Particle Cannons giving the gunships more firepower than the Minbari thought. The Thunderbolts now also dived into the battle, eight pairs doing strafing runs across the shields of the Linsharas, and dropping low yield fusion bombs directly onto the shields from point blank range. Whoever thought about that strategy was a genius.

With the destruction of the two largest ships the Minbari battle line started to fall apart and the Lupo stopped its interceptor job, all weapons now pointed at a single Sharlin that soon meet the same fate as the large Shargoti. Its spinal laser draining the shield, while the Plasma Motars did the rest.

The rest of the battle was equally one sided, as the Minbari had severely underestimated the firepower of the Terran fleet and seemed to have missed the fact that they were able to take much more punishment because of the use of several shield layers from several independent shield generators.

Tenchi nodded as he glanced on the display. Sure the fleet had lost three of the Monsoons and six Thunderbolts, but the Minbari had been defeated. The display shut down and ended the battle simulation on the other ships. He smirked as he looked at Vice Admiral Robby Jackson, the recently promoted and appointed CINCSNF, Commander in Chief Space Naval Forces, of the United States and Admiral Valentin Borissovich Dubinin, Jacksons Russian counterpart and one of Ramius former students. Than there were also Admiral Charles Davis of the British Space Service, now in command of the Lupo _HMS_ _Fearless_ and a single Monsoon, the _HMS_ _Dauntless_. The acting commanders of the other four nations, Germany, Japan, France and India weren't there.

"Well, Gentlemen," Tenchi said with a smile." It seems we shouldn't loose hope in international cooperation."

"Da," came from Dubinin, while Jackson and Davis chuckled a bit.

"The problem is, Gentlemen," Tenchi continued." The simulated Minbari in this one are based on the one Earth Force encountered during the Earth-Minbari war. Not necessarily the same as the Minbari around here."

The Admirals nodded.

"We should..." Jackson tried, but was interrupted as _Dark_ _Knight_ sounded General Quarters.

"Jump Point forming," the unseen speakers said and stopped _Dark_ _Knight's_ voice filled with a certain dread." I have no idea who could possibly have Jump Drives around here..."

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Space-Time was ripped apart as the jump point formed from a single white point of light to shape a blue glowing funnel. Something shot out of the funnel and finally resolved into a massive vessel, that of a Hyperion class heavy cruiser, complete with the classic light gray and blue color theme of Earth Force, much like the one he Terran vessels had adapted.

A pair of light gray egg shaped vessels were docked with the Hyperion, each of them the size of an Olympus. These eggs detached from their carrier as soon as they had left jump space, moving into flanking positions port and starboard of the larger heavy cruiser.

Sixteen Tiger class Starfuries also detached from the Hyperion, moving to the bow of the ship, while its sensors went to full power to scan the surrounding space.

----------------------------------------------------------------

An image of the ship that had come from the jump point formed over the holographic plot table on the bridge and Tenchi blinked a few times.

"Its a Hyperion," he said out loud, surprise sounding in his voice.

"And we get an Earth Force IFF code," _Dark_ _Knight_ added." From the time of the Dilgar War."

While the Hyperion slowly rotated over the plot, two parts were zoomed in. One showing a light gray egg shaped ship and the other a Starfury.

"Certainly explains the Tigers," Tenchi noted.

"IFF Transponder reads the ship as _EAS_ _Kobajashi_ _Maru_."

This caused Dubinin to shake his head.

"You Westerners overdo it with Star Trek."

Davis snorted, while Jackson snickered.

"I can assure you that this is not a Kobajashi Maru test, Admiral," Tenchi said dryly." I for one would like to know how another Earth Force ship can turn up here."

"Especially when it was lost in jump space during the Dilgar War," _Knight_ added again.

"Any idea about the eggs?"

"Other than that the Hyperion seemed to play Mother Hen?"

This time all three Admirals snorted.

"Sirs, we are called by the, uhm... _Kobajasi_ _Maru_."

It was clear that the communications tech didn't really know how he should react. Tenchi nodded and a screen close to the plot came to life.

The screen showed a humanoid who looked like a modern human imagined a Neaderthal, with thick and protruding eyebrows, but at the same time very different, as the being on the screen had blue skin and hair that looked like it was made from fine hairlike copper wires, floating around slightly in microgravity.

"This is Commander Doran Zarek," the humanoid said in perfect and accent free English," of the _EAS_ _Kobajashi_ _Maru_. I'm calling the Earth Force vessels."

The Admirals looked at each other and than at Tenchi, who nodded and activated the video camera for answering.

"This is _Dark_ _Knight_, Commodore Tenchi Masaki speaking," he said and smiled at Zarek." We hear you loud and clear."

Zarek smiled and showed two rows of perfectly white teeth.

"I can't tell you how good it feels to finally have made it this far," Zarek said." It took us five decades to understand the basics of the Jump Drive from the _Maru_ and repair her, so that we can establish contact with Earth."

Again the Admirals looked at each other, while Tenchi nodded.

"I think we should meet face to face Commander and you tell us this tale."

Zarek nodded.

"But of cause, Commodore. I would like to welcome you aboard the _Maru_."

----------------------------------------------------------------

Yosho/Katsuhito sighed as he listened to one of Sairyo seemingly endless rants about Earth, what he didn't like about the planet, namely everything, and how he didn't like that he was posted here as assistant to Yosho than being the Ambassador.

His look went out of the shrine and the ever growing number of protesters outside of shrine grounds. The local police just had some token guards posted in the area, while Azaka and Kamidake, with four more guards were doing the job of keeping the protesters from the shrine grounds, since it had officially become the Jurian Ambassy.

But it wasn't just the protesters and Sairyo, who gave him headaches. Another reason was his sister, Ayeka. She had gone deeper into something that Yosho had decided to call a psychosis three days ago. She wanted Tenchi down on the planet and married to her, _Dark_ _Knight_ in Jurian hands and dismantled and that Washuu erased the memories of his stay in the other universe. Another thing was the fact that she seemed to talk with herself more and more often, ranting while no body was there.

Ryoko on the other side gave Tenchi all the room he needed to breathe and do what he wanted to do. He chuckled slightly as he remembered how she had offered her service to help Tenchi whipping the new fleet into shape and learning how to fight a superior enemy. Ryo-Ohki was all for it too.

A sudden scream of Sairyo broke his train of thought and his head whipped around just to see a spray of red splatter over the polished wood of the shrine, while a red strain spread out on Sairyo's left shoulder. A faint thunderclap came just a second later.

Sairyo stared at the growing red spot at his left shoulder for a moment, before he was tackled by Yosho and thrown to the ground. Behind the spot where Sairyo had stood a moment ago, aged wood splintered from a high velocity projectile loosing its kinetic energy at impact.

Yosho stared at the splintered wood for a moment. He had reacted out of instinct and just now realization hit him.

"Sniper," he muttered.

He knew that there was a huge antipathy against the Jurians for not helping Earth, but he never dared to think that something like this could happen.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The Sailor Senshi looked at each other. This wasn't like one of their usual meetings, not since the Doranian attack. In fact it was one of their daily meetings. They were busy one form or another, helping as volunteers with cleaning up the rubble from the attack of Tokyo.

It had been early after the Attacks that Usagi had suggested to help in their civilian personas, not as Senshi, through Hotaru had helped several survivors dug from the rubble with her ability.

It was one of the hardest things they had ever done, far worse compared to fighting the enemies all those times before. Back than they never had ever really seen dead or mutilated victims of the Youma and other monsters. This time death and injury was always there, especially in areas like Jubaan or close to the Emperors Palace. Officials numbered the casualties into the hundreds of thousands, some even got over the million mark in all of Tokyo.

It felt strange, especially to Usagi that she had become used to see the casualties, finding an arm or a leg and not be moved to tears anymore. Overwhelming sorrow for the dead had moved aside for a grim determination no one ever thought that Usagi could show.

Most meetings since than had been centered about trying to relax, but now it was different. Setsuna had disappeared at the time of the attacks, her future self just bringing more questions than answers.

Now all looked at Setsuna, who sat just there unmoved by the rest of them staring.

"You want us to WHAT?" Haruka summed up the thoughts of the whole group.

"Go to the Jurian Embassy, contact the Jurian Ambassador and let him arrange a meeting with Commodore Tenchi Masaki, whom you will tell that you are the Sailor Senshi."

The staring continued for several seconds before it rapidly dissolved into a huge argument.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Washuu had a good chuckle as she read part of the news in the world. For the last four days there had been a Conference of engineers, scientists and science fiction authors from the entire planet in San Fransisco. Washuu could imagine that it had been sowhat like the 'Edwards Con' several days before.

Just that this one was pulling together people to think about the future as a whole.

One of the results was now getting to the news channels. The San Francisco Conference had called for a 'Terra Institute of Technology', a university and scientific campus that would be the focal point of the future technological development on Earth.

Hell, they already managed to get help for building it up, from several high tech companies as well as some nations like the US, Canads, Japan and some nations of the EU. It seemed that it would either been build in Geneva or somewhere in New York. At the moment it looked very likely to be Geneva, as the CERN would be close. With CERN, the University and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in the city, the TIT would be in a good neighborhood.

Next to her Admiral Macuso got a little impatient, his foot tapping on the ground, while looking her.

"And where is the new and improved Ramius?"

She looked up at Macuso with a smirk.

"He said that he wanted to try something."

At that moment the door opened to reveal someone who looked very much like the James Bond played by Sean Connery, dressed in a rather classical US Navy Uniform with the rank of a captain.

"I'm sorry, but there were a few people who thought that I was James Bond," the man said with a wry grin and a noticeable New York accent." But than again I wanted to try out if it works."

Macuso blinked a few times and Washuu laughed out loud.

"Ramius?"

The Sean Connery lookalike smirked.

"It's Marco Ramsey nowadays."

----------------------------------------------------------------

Tenchi sighed as he floated through the micro-gravity environment of the _EAS_ _Kobajashi_ _Maru_. It brought many memories to the surface. During his time as Starfury pilot he had been posted to a Hyperion and while that ship had been of a later version, this Hyperion had the same feeling to it. The same corridors, the handles and light at the same place on the bulkheads.

Just the crew of stocky blue skinned pseudo-neanderthals were a strange sight.

He turned around to look at the three Admirals. They had demanded to come over to the _Maru_, but the way they looked now Tenchi was sure that they regretted it. They were barely able to follow him or move with the same fluid grace. But than again Tenchi had lived a good amount of time in micro-gravity.

Commander Zarek had greeted them in the hangar and was now leading them towards the two flywheel simulated gravity environments of the Hyperion.

They needed a few more moments and as they entered the port fly wheel, Admiral Davis nearly threw up. Tenchi noted that the gravity in the flywheel was higher and combined with the stocky build of the Ferrons, he could imagine that they came from a planet with a higher gravity than Earth.

They sat down and Zarek looked at them.

"I think you would like to know why we are here and how he got this ship."

Tenchi nodded.

"Yes, according to the Earth Force Databases, the _EAS_ _Kobajashi_ _Maru_ got lost in jump space during the Dilgar War, before the Battle of Balos. And that was in another universe at that."

Zarek raised an eyebrow and nodded.

"We suspected as much, the materials of this ship are of another quantum frequency than other materials we know. Or the database entries about our home system, Vega."

Tenchi blinked, he hadn't imagined that the Ferron would be this open. But than again, all of the Ferrons so far had smiled real smiles, not just false forced smiles. Tenchi had enough skills of reading people to know that much.

"Than how did you get this ship?" Jackson asked.

"We found it sixty Earth years ago, floating in the orbit of Gol, the 14th planet of or system. The _Maru_ was badly damaged and the crew dead from vacuum exposure."

Zarek smiled.

"The _Maru_ helped our people greatly. We reverse engineered the Jump Drive and were able to build our own and our own jump gates. This ship finally gave us an FTL drive. Not to mention armor, E-Web and Interceptor technologies. After that we rebuild the _Maru_ from the core, but decided not to add modern Ferron technology such as artificial gravity."

Tenchi nodded. It seemed that the Ferrons didn't know about Quantum Slipstream.

"Please come to the point, Commander," Admiral Dubinin said drily." Why have you come here."

Zarek sighed.

"Genetical tests on the dead crew of the _Maru_ showed us that mankind are distant relatives to our people. We want..."

Tenchi was kind of prepared for that revelation, while the three Admirals openly stared. But that was only for a short moment as General Quarters sounded through the _Maru_.


	17. Chapter 17

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 16

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"General Quarters," a voice with heavy russian accent blared over the speakers in the port barracks of the _EAS_ _Freespace_. "This is not a drill! All personal report to battle stations!"

Tenchi would have fallen out of his sleeping bag hanging from the wall, if there had been something like gravity. Thoughts raced through his mind, for a moment wondering why there was General Quarters above Earth.

His stomach suddenly cramped up and seemed to turn into a small black hole.

'Minbari,' he thought as he literally burst through his sleeping bag.

He somehow knew that the next few hours would be hell...

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"Are you okay, Masaki?"

That question shook Tenchi out of one of the most powerful memories he had. Jacksons hand, placed on his shoulder just added to that.

Tenchi closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in deep.

"I'm okay, sir. A... bad memory."

The other Admirals looked at each other.

"If you say so..."

They had reached the bridge of the _Maru_ a few moments before Tenchi remembered the minutes after the alarm that started the 'Battle of the Line' for him. Like everything else on the ship it looked like a normal Hyperion.

"The XO of Dark Knight want to speak Commodore Masaki," the Ferron com tech said and looked at Zarek, who had strapped down on his chair, while other Ferrons helped the Admirals to strap down and Tenchi shook his head at a Ferron who wanted to help him.

Zarek nodded.

"Put it on the screen of his seat."

Tenchi closed the last parts of the harness that strapped him to the seat and looked at the screen and at Setsuna.

"Report," he said and she frowned.

"We have several slipstream events. Sixty Contacts, fifty Doranian Cruisers and ten unknown ships five times the size of the Cruisers. According to Nathan the emission indicate Quantum 2 level technology."

Tenchi swore than he looked at Zarek, who looked back, his eyes asking him what happened.

"Does the _Maru_ still have EF computer and fire control systems?"

Zarek nodded.

"We kept everything as close to the original specs as possible," he answered.

Tenchi nodded.

"Okay. We tie the _Maru_ into the tacnet. Our sensors should be more effective and allow the _Maru_ to fight if needed. At least that way we know what happens."

"What is going to happen?" Zarek asked and Tenchi knew that all members of the bridge crew looked at him.

"The Doranians attacked Earth about two weeks ago," he said," The _Knight_ defeated them and now they seem to want revenge."

Zarek suddenly had a fire in his eyes.

"Is the fleet out there the only in the system."

Tenchi nodded.

"Yes, it is. We better talk about that later."

Zarek just nodded and gave orders in his own language. The _Maru_ turned about and slowly moved into position with the Earth Fleet, the two eggs shaped ships still flanking her.

"What are you doing?" Tenchi asked as he recognized what was about to happen.

"I'm not going to sit back, Comodore. I'm going to fight."

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Aboard the Protectors Fight, the commander of the Doranian attack force, Kerval glared at the tactical display. According to the information of this Mordan, a very strange Jurian or Jurian colonist, this system shouldn't have any ships in them, aside from a wrecked ship that he should transport home for analysis.

But what he saw was the opposite. But nonetheless he was sure that he would win this fight. He was in command of fifty Cruiser and ten of the new Dreadnoughts, ships build with technology salvaged from the few Stribe ships that hadn't been destroyed by the Stribe themselves when they realized that the Doranian Protectorate was invading them successfully.

The new Dreadnoughts were far and between compared to the Cruisers, but with the new ship yards specially designed for the far larger Dreadnoughts, this would change.

The Dreadnoughts were five times the size of a Cruiser, but kept the same design, a large disk with a alcove/turret extension on the front. Added to classical rail guns and plasma bolters were Stribe anti-proton beam weapons and Ion bolters. Quantum 2 level shields protected a Dreadnought and gravimetric engines propelled it at sub-light while Stribe Quanum 2 level slipstream allowed much faster FTL travel.

He glared at the tactical display again. This would be like gutting a Pak'ma'ra and would prove that the Doranians could finally expand further. Many races would fall to the renewed might of the Protectorate and more hunting grounds and slave races would come to them.

He ordered his fleet to ignore the prays try to communicate.

Today this system, tomorrow Centauri Prime.

"Open Fire," he growled and a smile formed on his face.

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The Doranian cruisers were in the front line, the larger ranged Dreadnoughts keeping behind them as they opened fire, concentrating on the large shapes of _Dark_ _Knight_, _USS_ _Alabama_, _Potemkin_ and _HMS_ _Fearless_, ignoring the the much smaller Monsoons. The unshielded Maru and Ferron frigates were ignored for the moment, not seen as threat.

Without Tenchi, _Dark_ _Knight_ was equally unshielded, but her Interceptors rapidly spat out plasma fire to intercept the Plasma and Ion Bolter fire, just like the Interceptors of the _Fearless_ and the _Maru_. The two Ancient ships were keeping close to _Dark_ _Knight_ their shields expanded slightly to cover the Vorlon hybrid.

Counterfire slammed into the Doranians shields, Quantum discharges from thee ships and Particle Bolts of _Kights_ GOD cannons stripping away the shields of the Cruisers, while the Spinal laser and the heavy Plasma Motars of the _Fearless_ also took their toll on the Doranian fleet.

The Monsoons had already disappeared into slipstream, reappearing in the rear of the Doranian battle line, their smaller particle beams slamming into the much more powerful Dreadnoughts shields, nimbly evading all fire coming for them.

For a few moments, and while seven Cruisers died, the _Maru_ and her escorts retaliated. The _Maru_ fired her Earth Force Plasma cannons at the Doranians, while the Ferron frigates opened fire with hot white glowing beams. But the beams weren't really hot white glowing, if anything they should have had the color of the surrounding space, as a beam of focused gravitons wasn't emitting light. The hot while color was a side effect of the beam, that bend all light with its effect on space-time. Where the graviton beams impacted into the Doranian shields, they took their toll, bending and deforming the shield, adding much more strain to the generators and stripping away energy.

The two frigates kept close to their mother ship as it fired its missiles, the missiles found their targets, ripping into the shields of two Dreadnoughts with the explosive force of Quantum 40 enhanced high yield thermonuclear warhead, bucking the shields and allowing the Monsoons to score their first kills.

But even while the Doranians were loosing the battle, they weren't going without scoring on their own. The single layered shields of the Terran ships were more powerful than those of the Doranians, but the concentrated fire was able to pierce the shields. Only to encounter the heavy armor of the Terran ships. Railguns, anti-proton beams, plasma and Ion bolts slammed into _Fearless'_ and _Alabama's_ heavily armored hull, without the effect the Doranians were used to.

No explosive decompression, no primary or secondary explosions of important systems that would happen to the normally thin hull of all ships in the galaxy. And without these effects, the shields had time to come back online, once again protecting the ship itself.

But the Ferrons hadn't shields, only Interceptors and their own hull armor. The port hull of the _Maru_ was sliced open by an anti-proton beam, while a frigate took several Ion Bolts into its gravimetric engine, primary and secondary explosions ripping it apart from the inside.

Twenty minutes later the battle was over. Two Dreadnoughts and five Cruisers fleeing from the scene of battle, leaving the Terran and Ferron ships behind. _Alabama_ and _Fearless_ had lost several layers of armor, the of the Monsoons had lost one or two engines, the _Maru_ was gutted and one Ferron frigate lost.

But it was only a short glimpse of things to come. For both, Earth and Ferrol.

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"Hull breaches in Engineering. We lost rectors two and three."

Tenchi grit his teeth and stared at the monitors.

"Cut all energy to engines and life support, we are taking that sucker with us."

Emergency lights flashed on and the life support systems deactivated themselves for the moment, but even than the crew of the _EAS_ _Neil_ _Armstrong_ would be able to survive at least two hours.

"Target the next ship and fire with all we got."

The massive and heavily damaged Nova dreadnought was in the right position for this moment, its bow pointed at one of the Shadow modified Omegas fighting against the fleet Sheridan had build up to get Clarke out of Earth Dome.

The two heavy plasma mortars and ten Pulse Plasma Arrays of the _Armstrong_ barked once, twice and spat their deadly energy at the Shadow Omega, ripping into the bow, the rotating section and engineering, eating through the heavy shadow armor and deep into the hull of the massive ship.

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The familiar sound of alarms sounded through the bridge of the _Maru_ and Tenchi closes his eyes, breathing in deep. The ship had been gutted, a fair number of decks exposed to hard vacuum by a long breach of the port armor. At the moment _Maru_ was slowly getting into a tumble, the port fly wheel loosing its momentum as the drive motors lost energy and was slowed down by the automatic. Other automatics had closed the exposed section of the ship, preventing that the atmosphere of the ship vented into space.

Tenchi had to say that he was impressed by Zarek and his crew. The Ferrons were disciplined and as far as he could tell, the Damage Control Crews were going to work fast.

At the moment, Zarek looked exactly like any commander who had lost men and women of his crew. And Tenchi was able to relate to that, the Shadow War and the Earth Civil War had seen to that.

He glanced over to the three Admirals. They were a bit rattles from their first experience in the area of space borne warfare. The first real experience anyway.

"Are you okay," he asked them.

"Da," Dubinin nodded and looked every bit like the stoic Russian he was.

Jackson just nodded, while Davis was a little pale, with green mixed in it.

Tenchi turned back towards Zarek.

"Thank you for your support, Commander."

The Ferron nodded.

"It was not a problem," he answered and a pained expression came to his face," Now we need a dock. I doubt that we can get back home without closing the breach."

"Commander," a technician said," We are getting a message over tacnet. According to _Dark_ _Knight_, the remaining ships of the Aggressor fleet had a course vector that brings them into the inner system of our home system. Close to Ferrol."

Zarek grit his teeth.

"I want a Gold Channel to fleet head quarters ASAP. I just hope that _Red_ _Palace_, _Ferrol_, _Rofus_ and _Pigell_ out of dock already."

Tenchi frowned. According to what he knew, Slipstream allowed to pick up ships moving at STL speeds. He had asked Nathan about Vega, after the Ferrons had told him that they came from that system. It may look like a system without planets from the outside, Nathan told him, but that was a deception, by the Ancients who had literally build the system.

"I take it that _Red_ _Palace_ and the others are ships?"

Zarek nodded.

"Yes. They are Hyperion hulls, but adapted to our technology."

Tenchi sighed.

"Lets hope so," he said and looked over to the three Admirals." I think I need to talk to Fleet Command myself."

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Nathan was something else, if you walked inside of him, or at least his industrial areas. As a whole Nathan and his industrial areas covered an area of more than 5600 square kilometers and reached ten kilometers deep into the rock of the moon, while being a kilometer beneath the surface. Large shafts were digging deeper into the crust to the large mining operations inside the moon, supporting the massive industrial areas of Nathan with needed raw materials.

At the moment, the robots responsible for the mining were offline, at least until Nathan had reactivated the systems he needed to repair other parts of himself after more than twenty five thousand years. But even than his stockpiles were large enough to build a number of space ships.

Part of Nathan was a massive ship yard and a hangar large enough to repair or build up to twenty Ancient class battleships or mothballing a whole hundred of them. He could build even larger ships. But there weren't any conventional means of getting into this hangar, nor even to get into Nathan. Nathan himself had to activate special subspace tunnels to let someone or something enter him.

At the moment, the _EAS_ _Kobajashi_ _Maru_ floated into the main hangar of Nathan, the whole environment kept in micro-gravity. She slowly moved towards one of the docking pylons and was gripped by massive grapplers.

As soon as the ship had docked with the pylon, micro gravity robots moved towards the hull breach and examined it. Over the cause of several hours, the robots were starting to cut away damaged areas, while the already active industrial facilities began to create new pieces of armor for the Hyperion.

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Tenchi sat in the conference room of _Dark_ _Knight_, Admirals Jackson, Davis and Dubinin with him. The massive display in one side of the screen was currently showing several other people, the German, Japanese, French and Indian Admirals in charge of their small space navies, as well as the Presidents of the United States and Russia and Washuu.

"Gentlemen," Tenchi said," this is important. We need to help the Ferrons."

"We can't help them," the French Admiral said," We don't have the means to do so. We need to protect Earth."

"Well," Washuu interrupted the French before he could continue," Ryo-Ohki is up again, while she might be still a little out of it from the Vorlon poetry, she can fight again."

"Vogon poetry?" the German Admiral asked with wide eyes," Please don't tell me that there are Vogon out there."

"No, thankfully. It was an incident with a machine I developed. Anyway, Ryo-Ohki would be up to the job, not to mention that I'm ready to add shields and a slipstream drive to Dark Knight as prefabricated modules. Nathan would only need about six hours to install them."

"Its good that Ryo-Ohki is up and running again," Tenchi said with a smile." What about those modified G.O.D. sats you told me about?"

"G.O.D. sats?" Ryan asked." And why weren't we informed about that?"

"G.O.D. satellites," Washuu said," Global Orbital Defense system. I have only build two of them, but added several thing to them. Additional to the Mk V G.O.D. cannon and the missiles they got a minor gravimetric drive so that they can change orbit and move about in orbit. I also finished five of those Ghostrider Missile pods. Philadelphia is also building them, right?"

Ryan nodded.

"Yes, they are one of our best calls for a fast planetary defense on a short run."

"I could get them online within a day. The _Nautilus_ is also ready as are two additional stealth Monsoons and an additional Lupo and Vigilante. Nathan also informed me that he got three of his ships ready to be manned. And we got the crews to man those ships, even a few more at that."

Tenchi nodded.

"I think we could pull this off," he said," Ryo-Ohki is one of our biggest assets. She can fight off 2nd gen Jurian Treeships as well as just about every ship in the Minbari arsenal. With the G.O.D.s and the Missile pods we could form an assault fleet and help the Ferrons. Not to mention that the Ferrons also have a sizable fleet.

He made a pause.

"Commander Zarek helped us even if he wasn't obliged to help. We owe him. And we owe the Ferrons. We need to help."


	18. Chapter 18

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 17

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Shabazza and his companions were a little concerned as they moved closer towards Earth. They had witnessed the battle just two hours ago and had seen how a fleet over Earth had defeated another. The good news for them was that the fleet that had won seemed to be from Earth itself, through it was surprising that Earth could build such ships in less than two weeks.

But there was no turning back now. They all had completely changed their metabolism from electric power from their tethers to their leafs and chlorophyll. Now they would need to be in the inner system for at least five years until they had enough reserves to return to the Kuiper Belt.

All twenty Wanderers had entered something that could be described as formation, as they crossed the imaginary line where the Earth gravitation field was stronger than that of the sun.

----------------------------------------------------------------

_Hamburg_ made her way through space. There had been a strange sensory echo just outside of her sensor cover. Fregattenkapitän (OF-5) Werner Braun had informed _Dark_ _Knight_ about it and gotten order to take a look at the strange echo.

Now he and and his bridge crew stared at the main viewer and the formation of dark green colored asteroids.

"Zoom in," Braun ordered and he was greeted with the sight of a strange surface of the asteroids.

"More zoom."

More staring as they all looked at large intersecting dark green leafs and some holes in the cover.

Braun looked around.

"Okay, who put LSD in our water..."

"Uhm... That is real. Our sensors are telling us that those asteroids are massively covered by organic matter... Living organic matter..."

Braun looked at the screen again.

"Get me _Dark_ _Knight_."

----------------------------------------------------------------

"What?"

Tenchi blinked a few times, staring at the symbol of Nathan on the screen. They were still planning Operation 'Aegis' and so the call of _Hamburg_ and than the call of Nathan was a small problem. The Nautilus as well as the other ships, two stealthed Monsoons, one Lupo and one Vigilante, as well as two Ancient battleships were currently rushed into service, through they wouldn't be part of the operation.

Knight was currently docked with Nathan, as the shield and slipstream modules were added. Washuu has also told something about a surprise.

"They are what is commonly, or not so commonly, called Dyson Trees. They are essentially large trees genetically engineered to grow and live in space on an host asteroid. Their trunks and branches are hollow, as they were developed by the Ancients to serve as living and self governing space stations. You'd only need to plant one on an asteroid and in ten years you have a space station."

"So they are intelligent," Jackson noted.

"Yes, they are. I always thought that they were all destroyed during the Cataclysm. But it seems that they have survived somehow."

"So we got twenty bloody giant trees coming to us?"

"Essentially. But they won't be a problem to Earth security, as they are peaceful, even if they are armed with biological lasers and have a shield themselves."

Tenchi leaned back, thinking. Giant trees, genetically engineered to be living space stations. It was familiar. Could it be that the Jurian Trees were related to these... Solar Trees?

"Commodore," Knight said after a moment," _Alabama_ reports that one of the trees opened a radio channel. Captain Mitchell is currently talking to the leader of the trees, Shabazza. It seems that they come in peace and want to help us..."

----------------------------------------------------------------

"He had luck," Doktor Majasaki said as he looked at Yosho." The projectile missed vital arteries and the bone. It came out on the other side without doing any damage. It is going to heal normally, through there are going to be scars."

Yosho nodded as he looked over to Sairyo, Ayekas former new fiance and his aide for the Jurian Embassy on Earth. He didn't really like Sairyo, but the sniper was just a new problem.

He grit his teeth. He knew that people were blaming the Jurians for the destruction of about eighty cities world wide, the demonstrating masses in front of the Embassy, the Masaki shrine was more than enough evidence already.

But now this sniper. The Japanese Police had reacted fast enough, even through it had been Azaka who had caught him.

There was something that made Yosho even more nervous. The sniper had been an Afghanistani. Officially he had been in Japan doing business for a small company. He hadn't had anything that could have allowed him to smuggle a Dragunov sniper rifle into the country.

For a moment he glanced out of the room and into the corridor. Seeing a few caucasian men in suits he shook his head. Even if this was Japanese soil, it seemed that the CIA was trying to help here. Not all that surprising, considering that the Jurian Embassy was located here and that the US were more or less the representative for Earth outside of this system.

Two of the men in suits entered the room and Yosho recognized General John Clark, who he had met in Camp David. He knew that Clarke had been a liaison officer to Tenchi, at least until he had gotten a crew for his ship. It seemed he had to revise his opinion. It wasn't CIA, or at least not completely. It was Rainbow, an international counter terrorist unit.

"General Clark," Yosho said and bowed slightly." It is good to see you."

Clark smiled and bowed in response, taking the Japanese custom.

"Likewise, Ambassador."

He mentioned to his companion, a latino.

"Staff Sergeant Domingo Chavez."

"Ambassador."

"What brings you here, General?"

Clark looked over to the still unconscious Sairyo.

"The Sniper. We just arrived as he heard about it. Rainbow was ordered to provide security for the Embassy. We already talked to Mr. Moussaoui. It seems Earth just got a whole new problem."

Yosho raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"Or at least an old problem. I guess you know that the US and the CIA provided the Mudjahedin

with military advisors and weapons during the Afghanistan War in the 80s."

Yosho nodded.

"Yes. As I remember it was a grueling war for the Soviets. And that it lead to a civil war, with the Taliban taking over most of the country."

Clarke nodded.

"From what Mr. Moussaoui told us, he was send by an organisation named Al-Qaeda, lead by an old ally of the US, Osama bin Laden."

----------------------------------------------------------------

"It looks a little strange, compared to the standard M4," Marine Brigadier Michael Hall said as he looked over the weapon R&D in Quantico had cooked up since they had gotten the plans from the DVDs of Commodore Masaki, as well as the additional plans from the numerous servers world wide.

The weapon is his hands looked mostly like a normal M4. The butt stock and the forward hand grip of the weapon was larger and the barrel looked like it was thicker. There were also a number of buttons, LEDs and a display of all things.

Andrew Biggs, one of the civilians in R&D, was grinning at Hall and nodded.

"We call it the M4A2. We took a M4A1 and rebuild it with a railgun booster stage."

Hall stared at Biggs for a moment and than looked down to the weapon again.

"What?" he asked and his disbelieve was quite audible.

Biggs still grinned and took the M4A2 from Hall. He placed it back on the table in the shooting range and pointed at the stock.

"The stock is larger because we needed a place to fit a fusion cell, kind of a small fusion reactor working with a metalhydrid cartridge."

He picked up a small container that looked like a CO2 cartridge for air guns.

"It produces high amounts of energy, which are stored in a high capacity fast loading capacitor bank in the hand grip and the rest of the stock."

He picked the weapon back up and showed the barrel of it.

"We produced a special barrel. It got the same caliber as a normal M4, but is mostly composed of a ceramic we took from the EF database, like the fusion cell. In the inner side we have inlaid the barrel with two stripes of a special high temperature superconductor like its used on the larger railguns."

Than he grinned some more and picked up a magazine.

"But the best is that the M4A2 got two fire modes. Normal fire without the railgun booster and railgun fire with the booster. In both cases we use standard 5.56 Nato ammunition."

He inserted the magazine into the weapon, loaded it like a normal M4 and pointed it down the range before turning off the safety.

"We left the action and ammo feed unchanged. I now fire in normal mode."

He pressed the trigger and fired. It looked and sounded like any other M4 to Hall, who crossed his arms, as Biggs emptied half of the magazine in single shot mode.

"Now for the Booster."

Biggs pressed two buttons, several lights glowed and the display showed some information.

He pressed the trigger again and the muzzle flash was much brighter as well as blue colored. The sound of the weapon also increased and the recoil was very visible. Down range, the target now had a very large hole.

Hall blinked a few times and than looked at Hall, who had put down the weapon and massaged his shoulder.

"We still need to work on it through. The recoil is the worst problem."

"How fast is the muzzle speed?"

"Uhm... About Mach six. But we think that we can get it up to at least Mach ten, maybe Mach twelve. Gets though pretty much every vest and ballistic plate."

"How long until we can use these babies?"

"We don't know. This is the first prototype. We think we can reduce the size of the railgun mechanisms by half, reduce the recoil and correct a few other problems. But we work as fast as we can. The EF data on railguns, through naval ones is helping very much."

Hall smiled.

"Anything else, Mr. Biggs?"

Biggs smiled some more and put down the M4A2 prototype. Than he walked towards the exit and lead Hall to another building.

"I think you read Starship Troopers, General considering that it is on the recommended reading list of the Corps."

"Than you also know one of the best concepts from the book."

Hall stopped and stared at Biggs.

"Don't tell me you are designing Power Armor."

Biggs smile widened.

"Well, not that far yet. But we used the data of fast powerful actuators and the fusion cell technology to modify the DARPA projects of exoskeletons. But we think that we can get to the first prototype Power Armor by the end of the year. We already got a project name, 'MJOLNIR'."

Hall groaned.

"Lets just hope that Gates doesn't sue you..."

----------------------------------------------------------------

Tenchi nodded as he looked at the plans for Operation 'Aegis', the defense of Vega from the Doranians, something that everyone hoped wouldn't happen.

'Aegis' was named after the legendary shield of the goddess Athena and in a sense after the AEGIS system of the wet navy. Defense by active means.

The Operation would pretty much strip Earth of its most experienced warship crews, but that wasn't by very much compared to the new crews anyway. All they had done up to date were two simulations and a single combat with an enemy that was more or less sub-par, compared to the enemies they had fought in the simulations, the simulated Minbari and Centauri assault fleets.

He looked down at the list of ships that were currently assigned to the temporary 1st Earth Expedition Fleet. _USS_ _Alabama_ and _Potempkin_, the two 'veteran' Ancient class Assault Vectors, _HMS_ _Fearless_, the single 'veteran' Lupo, as well as _USS_ _Potomac_, _Kirow_, _Arcadia_ and _Hamburg,_ four of the seven 'veteran' Monsoons. The other three veteran Monsoons would remain home to have at least some 'veteran' units for defense.

_Dark_ _Knight_ would also be part of the fleet going to Vega, as Tenchi was the only one with real space combat and command experience, compared to everyone else.

He sighed and leaned back. Nathan had just finished installing the shield and slipstream modules in Knight and was fitting the large armor plates back into place. Washuu had also gone so far as building a shield and slipstream module for the EAS Kobajashi Maru at short notice, where it was currently installed, keeping with standard Earth Force regulations.

But still, Earth Defense still made Tenchi a little giddy. He didn't really want to leave Earth, but Ferrol was important. The Ferrons had helped with Earth Defense and the least Earth could do was helping them. For Tenchi is was a matter of honor between commanding officers, himself and Commander Zarek.

At least Washuu had finished the two G.O.D. satellites, like the adapted Earth Force ship designed, based on the latest incarnation of the Earth Alliance G.O.D.s. They were armed with Mk V particle cannons, missiles and medium plasma streamers/ion repeaters, with an Washuu refit consisting of a gravitic drive based on the 'Waverider' system of Earth Force and a shield to increase survivability.

Than there were also the five 'Ghostrider' Missile Pods, designed by a pair of Pentagon technicians and heavily based on the 'Honor Harrington' SciFi novel series. Armed with ten long range anti-cap ship missiles each, they were already transported to the Lagrange Point L1 of Earth and Sol by HMS Dauntless. Most of the Pods would be put there and at L2 to provide the minimal needed range for the Kinetic Kill Vehicles that slammed into the target at low to high relativistic speeds.

The Philadelphia Ship Yards were already building twenty of them and would be finished in about a month, while the missiles were a larger problem, currently handled by Boeing, Lockheed-Martin and Euromissile.

And than there were the twenty large 'Dyson Trees' who called themselves Wanderers. They had entered a high Earth Orbit and their leader, Shabazza, was currently talking to both Nathan and the United Nations over radio. From what Tenchi knew, they were offering Earth to act as giant space stations, a task they had originally been designed for by the Ancients a long time ago.

Nathan had mentioned that the Trees were armed with organic lasers for self defense and could project a sort of telekinetic shield that was on par with a normal mid-Quantum 2 shield.

Tenchi shook his head, he could already hear environmentalists scream bloody murder because of the Trees and their 'exploitation' as stations and defense platforms, totally ignoring that the Trees had offered to be exactly that on their own. They wanted to protect their home for generations, the solar system as a whole, by working with Earth.

He sighed again. He didn't really want to become involved in politics, but building up Earth to become capable of defending its own in this universe needed just that. But he would try to keep in the background as much as possible. If just the UN would work faster...

"Penny four your thoughts," he head a so what familiar voice and turned around.

Leaning in the door frame was a woman. She had an attractive face with high cheek bones, lush red lips, brown eyes and black hair with red highlights. Add a very attractive body to it and you got a body men would die for and was dressed in much as the same outfit as Motoko Kusanagi wore in the first few episode of 'Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex'. And there were two sets of latin script running up the right and left leg. The right leg was inscripted 'Tenchi' in black letters, while the left was inscripted 'Setsuna' in red and only half the size of the black letters.

Tenchi blinked and than swallowed, while his pants tented, as he remembered a particular wet 'VR session' in Camp David.

"You got Washuu to build those avatars, _Knight_?"

The Avatar of _Dark_ _Knight_ grinned and walked over to Tenchi placing herself into his lap.

"Call me 'D', loverboy," she answered with a wide grin on her face.

"Hoo Boy..."


	19. Chapter 19

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 18

----------------------------------------------------------------

Captain Marco Ramsey smiled as he entered the bridge of his ship.

He smiled. His ship. It had been long since he had command of his own ship. The last being _Red_ _October_ about twenty years ago, a ship that had meant to upset the Status Quo between the Soviet Union and the United States, able to carry twenty R-39 missiles while being completely undetected.

But he had brought his ship to the United States, together with his command crew, and given it to the Americans.

His life in the United States had changed him. He knew that it had been the right thing to do back than with _Red_ _October_. But during all the time working for the US, he had always wished to be back in command. The diagnosis of cancer had seemed to put this wish into the realm of the impossible.

At least until the Doranians had attacked Earth and he had gotten a call from _Dark_ _Knight_. He chuckled. He never had dreamed that his wish would become true.

Washuu had helped him, cured his cancer, activated these ancient genes with the side effect of making him younger. From what he knew the Rapid Schooling he had gotten was being much more complex, containing much more information about the Galaxy and the different races out there, their capabilities and strategies. The biggest thing about that seemed to be that he knew exactly what he knew, other than most others that had been 'rapid schooled'.

And than there was this 'sample' Washuu had wanted from him. She had threatened him to remove his smile surgically, followed by some time with her in her adult form. Now he knew exactly how 'James Bond' would have felt if her had been real.

"Captain on deck," he heard someone call out.

"At ease," he said, sounding like he was from New York, thanks to the rapid schooling.

He looked around. The bridge of his new ship, _USS_ _Nautilus_, was much like a mix of the bridge of a submarine, that of a capital ship with some Star Trek mixed in for the good measure. The three entries was on the back of the bridge on a raised platform with a handrail on the edge.

He grabbed the handrail with both hands and looked down on his new bridge crew. These were the best of the best from the United States Submarine Fleet. All of them had been on duty for at least ten years and were handpicked by Admiral Macuso, maybe the oldest friend of Ramsey in the States next to President Ryan. Most of them were not older than thirty years with only a few being older.

One of those who were older was Lieutenant Ron Jones, the former sonar technician from _USS_ _Dallas_ and the man who had literally found out _Red_ _October_. According to the files he had been a civilian during the attack and re-entered service with the Navy afterwards.

Ramsey smiled. Hopefully he was as skilled with the sensors of _Nautilus_ as he had been with the sonar of _Dallas_.

"Okay, Gentlemen," he finally said with a smile on his face and the bridge crew looked at him." Now the serious part of the game is about to begin. I just received our orders. We are to do what we do best. We will play some cat and mouse with the Doranians. And we are going to be the cats."

The bridge went silent.

"We are part of Operation 'Red October'," he said and a chuckle came from Jones," As will be _USS_ _Stingray_ and _USS_ _Los_ _Angeles_, both stealthed Monsoons. We can go where we want to go in the cause of this operation, as long as we play havoc in enemy territory. In essence we will do several things. We will raid enemy supply lines, enemy naval installations and gather as many Intel as we can. _Stingray_ and _Los_ _Angeles_ will do the same, but they will stay closer to the border of Doranian space than we are going to do. We will play our game deep within Doranian controlled space."

He could see smiles all along the faces of his bridge crew.

"Okay, we are to leave for Doranian space in two hours along with _Stingray_ and _Los_ _Angeles_. So lets get ready."

He let go of the handrail and stepped back as his bridge crew went back to business. Jones let go of his stuff and came over to Ramsey.

"Good to see you again, sir," Jones said with a smile," Through you look a little different to last time."

"I had a good... tailor."

Jones shook his head and suppressed a laugh. Than he grinned much more.

"Operation 'Red October', eh?"

Ramsey laughed out loud.

"I think we both now Macuso."

Jones just nodded and the smile refused to leave his face.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"I have to say that these fusion cells seem to be very... effective for their size."

General Hall looked at the massive armored form of a M1 Abrams. Next to him Biggs grinned one of his grins.

"Of cause, sir," he answered and walked up to the Abrams where technicians were still working." Until now we have exchanged the gas turbine with two high power electro motors and four larger fusion cells, compared to the Powered Armor and the M4A2."

Hall looked over the tank, but at the moment the turret was missing from the main body, sitting next to it. The barrel of the turret was likewise missing and no where to be seen.

"Let me guess," Hall said," the barrel will be exchanged with something similar to the M4."

Biggs chuckled.

"And some people say that Marines are stupid," he said, getting a dark glare from Hall." Its exactly what you think, General. Two fire modi, one normal one with the rail gun booster. That way the tank can still use standard munition, while having the power of a rail gun. And it will be able to carry some more munition, as the removal of the gas turbine had freed much space. We can even add a shield system."

"A shield," Hall stated a little surprised.

"Yes. Just like with the final prototype of the Powered Armor. But the Abrams will get it first, as we want to try out if we can get a skin hugging shield. If it works, we add a shield of the same type to the Power Armor."

"Anything else?"

"Well..." Biggs said thinking for a moment." So of my men want to add a counter grav system so that the tank can be dropped from a plane and create a full environmental seal for the whole tank for duty on other planets."

Hall looked at the tank.

"And than there was Sergeant McKay," Biggs continued." He thinks that countergrav, shield, environmental seal and a strap on rocket booster could be used for an orbital drop."

Hall turned to Biggs and stared at the civilian head of the Future Technology Program of the Marine Corps, who shrugged.

"Don't ask me where he got that idea."

Hall shook his head clear as they walked around the M1, only to look at the hull of an old Sheridan M551. He turned his head to look at Biggs.

"What is that?"

"An M551 Sheridan, sir. I thought you would remember it from Vietnam."

Hall glared at Biggs again.

"And what does it do here?"

Biggs shrugged.

"Much of the same as the Abrams. We modify it. Fusion cells and electro motors and a new main weapon for the turret."

The walked towards the turret, which was sitting next to the tank. The barrel was missing and instead there seemed to be now two mounts for large guns.

"Two barrels with rail gun boosters? I don't think that the Sheridan could take that much recoil."

Biggs grinned and petted the turret.

"No normal cannon, sir. We think about using a dual Ion Cannon mount. We are currently scaling a capital ship Ion Cannon to a size that fits into the tank. It also gets a skin hugging shield, environmental seal as well as a counter grav. Through we are really thinking of adding some sort of jet drive to it. Sergeant Westernhagen called it a Shift, when he suggested it. What ever that is."

Hall blinked a few times more.

"Anything else you want to show me? A flying saucer maybe? Or a jetpack for the normal grunts?"

Biggs blinked innocently.

"How do you know that we work on that, sir?"

The look on Halls face showed that he was close to strangle Biggs.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Space was busy. Earth had gotten shuttles from Nathan, small affairs that were build from basic technologies that weren't really more advanced than the Earth Force shuttles. At the moment those shuttles were moving in droves between the 1st Expedition Fleet, Earth and on of the Wanderers, Shabazza.

Talks between the Trees and Earth had been very fast, which was interesting. But it wasn't really coming from the United Nations, who were still busy to talk about the future of the Earth Defense. The US, EU, Russia, the British Commonwealth and Japan had individually talked to Shabazza at the same time, showing that the Trees were very much multi-tasking. The talks had been fast and as result, crews from just about every nation were send to Shabazza.

It seemed that he would become the orbital headquarters of the temporary Earth Defense. Much like the Pentagon.

Into this busy environment, a slipstream event happened just outside the slipstream perimeter of Earth, about a hundred thousand kilometers above the planet.

Alarms went through the 1st Expeditionary Fleet as well as the Wolf Pack Fleet and the Home Guard. The Wolf Pack Fleet were the three heavily stealthed ships, _USS_ _Nautilus_, _Stingray_ and _Los_ _Angeles_, while the Home Guard were the rest of the ships not part of the 1st Expeditionary Fleet or Wolf Pack Fleet.

It was _Dark_ _Knight_ through, who identified the ship that had left slipstream. A Minbari Liandra class patrol cutter, the Minbari answer to the Galaxy Police patrol ships.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"This is Commodore Tenchi Masaki of the Earth Defense battleship Dark Knight to unknown Minbari vessel. Identify yourself."

Tenchi looked at the main view screen. 1st Expeditionary Fleet was ready for departure and he would be in command of the fleet. But now this single Minbari ship was complicating matters for the moment. He had finally gotten away from D after about one hour of 'fun' and was still a bit ruffled by the experience, even if that was now three hours ago. That D was now standing behind him, pouting wasn't helping matters.

The screen changed and showed the very familiar face of a female Minbari in the robes of the Religious Caste.

"I'm Delenn," the woman said." We come in peace and want to talk about the formation of diplomatic relations between your world and the Galactic Federation."

Tenchi raised an eyebrow. For a moment he wondered if he should shock Delenn by calling her 'Satai', but decided against it. He just nodded.

"I this case, you are cleared for entering a parking orbit. You will need to talk to several nations of Earth, as we don't have a united government."

Delenn blinked and than nods.

"Thank you," she said and the connection was cut from the Minbari side.

Tenchi looked back at D.

"This is going to be interesting when we come back from Vega," he noted and turned back to the crew." Signal to the fleets to step down from Condition Red."

----------------------------------------------------------------

President Jack Ryan sighed internally as he glanced at the holographic projection in front of him. Mrs. Habuki had been so friendly to install a holocom in the Oval Office, just like she had done for so many heads of nations all over the world, so that any alien ambassador could talk to them without really getting away from their Embassy.

At the moment, Sairyo, the aide of Ambassador Yosho of the Jurian Empire, was talking or rather ranting with Ryan. Ryan was very much tempted to just cut the connection.

"You don't have the right to keep those Trees from the Jurian Empire. We rightfully own them. They are out property."

"Does that mean that every single tree on each planet is the property of the Jurian Empire?" Ryan asked dryly.

He knew that Sairyo was talking about the Wanderers.

"I am speaking of the Space Trees currently in orbit. They are Jurian property."

"Jurai is practicing Slavery than," Ryan said and his eyes narrowed." The Wanderers are native to our solar system for the last 75.000 years as far as we know. And our sources are very reliable."

Sairyo sputtered and than winced, holding the shoulder where he had been shot. Ryan said nothing.

"We will talk about this later," Sairyo winced and cut the connection.

Ryan leaned back and looked at Arnold van Damm, his Chief of Staff.

"I have a feeling that he doesn't really like us," he noted.

"He most likely wants to see us a subjects of the Empire," van Damm said and sighed." We need to do something about Al-Qaeda through."

Ryan nodded.

"Yeah, But Rainbow is already on the case."

Van Damm winced slightly, but said nothing.

"Lets hope that they get something before Al-Qaeda does more damage.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The San Diego shipyards were busy. Massive construction works were going on across the entire fleet harbor of the city. Several of the large dry docks were converted to dry docks for Monsoon and Olympus class space ships, while there was actually already the keel of one Monsoon laid in one of the docks.

But even than the whole area was filled with empty warehouses, office buildings and one or two apartment buildings. During the whole reconstruction and new construction around the fleet harbor no one really payed attention to a group of people moving into one of the empty apartment buildings, nor the 'renovation' of the building.

Several large pipes were brought into the building and debris of teared down walls. About four days later the entire group moved out of the house again and didn't come back.

Inside the four story building was a very long PVC waste pipe, going from the top floor down to the first floor. The first floor was empty, nothing standing in the way around the pipe and the strange boxes strapped to the pipe. Up in the top floor, the pipe was closed several wires going to a small box and a cell phone, while other wires came from the box to the boxes in the first floor.

It was mid day when the phone started ringing. It rang several time until a message appeared on the display, showing a cartoon bomb blowing up. Inside the box several things happened. The box activated the boxed down in the first floor, while a charge of plastic explosives blew up on top of the pipe, sending a large slab of a soft silvery metal down the pipe at high speed.

Neutrons were emitted from the small boxes on the first floor as the block of the soft metal impacted into a second, larger block of the same metal. For a moment a blue light could be seen from the two blocks of metal before all vanished into a blinding white light that quickly consumed the building and large parts of the San Diego Fleet Harbor.

A mushroom shaped cloud rose above the harbor, while hurricane strength winds and the huge heat from the nuclear detonation reduced much of the city to a large debris field.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"... detonated simultaneously in San Diego in the United States, Exeter in the United Kingdom, Vladivostok in the Russian Republic, and Lyon on France. At the moment it is impossible to tell the number of victims of these terroristic..."

zap

"... was claimed by Al-Qaeda, the same terroristic organisation who claimed the assassination attempt on the aide of the Jurian Ambassador..."

zap

"... mourning for the victims of the terroristic attack..."

zap

"... at the wrong time. Just one hour before the attacks, a ship with diplomatic envoys of the Minbari Federation..."

zap

"... just rammed the remaining tower of the World Trade Center! No one knows where it came from. It just..."

zap

"... new messages of terroristic attacks on sites that are directed at places that are vital for the building of a Defense Force for Earth. With the detonation of 'Dirty Bombs' in Bombay and Nagasaki..."

zap

"... maybe the largest number of civilian victims in the world. No one ever would have thought to detonate a 'Dirty Bomb' during the Oktober Fest in Munich. More than one million people were..."

zap


	20. Chapter 20

Back Home – The Dual War

Warringer

Chapter 19

----------------------------------------------------------------

Tenchi grit his teeth. 1st Expedition Fleet had been on its way through slipstream towards Vega as two messages had arrived. One came from Vega, directed at the _Maru_, the other came directly from Nathan and was directed at the whole fleet. Both were send via Tachyon beam, showing that it was possible to receive Tachyon messages in slipstream and giving Earth another advantage over the slipstream quantum communication the rest of the Galaxy used.

The message from Vega was a cry for help, as the worst case scenario concerning Vega and the Doranians had become reality. The rest of the Doranian Fleet coming from Earth had passed through Vega and discovered the hidden system. Even worse, they had attacked Ferrol and destroyed several orbital installations and bombarded the Ferron home world. They had even destroyed the jump gate and forced the remaining Ferron fleet to get to Ferrol at sub-light speeds.

Even worse was that it seemed as if reinforcements for the Doranians would arrive, called from the Doranian outpost behind Vega.

But the message from Earth was worse. Several nuclear terroristic acts all over the world, directed at either sites where the fleet would be build or just heavily populated areas. But the passenger jet that impacted into the remaining tower of the World Trade Center was an even worse hit into the Americans face. Just the nuclear detonation at the Super Bowl several years earlier was worse.

The name Al-Qaeda was especially unsettling. In the Earth Alliance universe, Al-Qaeda has also existed, but they had been so what less destructive. There they had 'just' impacted into the two towers of the WTC and the Pentagon in 2001, with an attack in Madrid about two years later. The US President of that time had enough common sense to not attack someone just after the attacks, but he non the less had attacked the only nation that had supported Al-Qaeda, Afganistan.

Here that wasn't likely. This concerned the entire world. It was the first example of Global Nuclear Terrorism. It was very likely for the US and all other nations to attack Al-Qaeda immediately. Hell, with the space ships it was very possible that there would be orbital bombardments. Either completely incinerating a target area with a GOD satellite or a precision strike with a spinal laster of a Lupo.

He closed his eyes. The nuclear and dirty detonations was telling him one thing. It seemed that Bin Laden had liked the idea of nuclear terrorism, clearly shown by the nuke at the Super Bowl. He had years of preparing, getting nuclear material from various sources, most likely either Russia, as the Russians didn't really look after their facilities, even after loosing a nuke, or Pakistan, where the fundamentalist Muslims had more than enough supporters and some of them being in the Pakistani nuclear program.

Hell, even building a nuke was easy, even for a physics student. There were even plans for DIY nukes around in the Internet. And getting the material into any nation could be done on several ways...

But the strength of the nukes bugged him. No DIY nuke should have had this power. Something was fishy on the whole thing.

----------------------------------------------------------------

President Jack Ryan glared at the current head of the CIA, Ed Foley, with growing intensity.

"I know that you do remember Denver. You can't tell me that you knew about possible attacks of Al-Qaeda."

Foley closed his eyes.

"We didn't know that they got nukes. We don't even know where they got the nuclear material. Hell, we don't even understand why those nukes had the power they had. We know that they can't be more than DIY nukes. But no DIY nuke can have close to one MT."

Ryan glared at Foley. He knew exactly how it was to see the effects of a nuke from close up, having been in Denver during the bomb.

"I want every single bit of information on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. I want to know where he is. The Generals are sitting in my neck, as are the general population and all nations that were targets of these attacks."

The glare got more and more intense.

"I want Bin Ladens head on my desk, served on a silver platter."

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Slipstream was a very interesting medium, _Dark_ _Knight_ decided. It may not be like Jump Space, where you could keep being stationary over your target, but you could actually slow down to get a good look at the target area.

While she was concerned about the news from Earth, it just reeked of Shadow involvement, she had more important things in front of her.

"All ships on battle stations," Tenchi said and stood over the plot table." We drop from slipstream in a minute. I want targeting solutions until than."

What the sensors told _Knight_ wasn't really assuring. Even if the Ferrons had the technology to defeat the Doranians, the two Doranian Dreadnoughts were a little too much, especially because the shield of those ships were much more powerful than the shields of a Cruiser, mostly because they were supplied with more power and on the other side because they were of a Quantum 2 level.

Worse, the Dreadnaughts were actively drawing the fire from the much smaller Ferron vessels. That the two egg shaped four hundred meter long Ferron frigates were actually the largest vessels the Ferron Navy could field, not counting the _Maru_ and the four Hyperion derivates Zarek had mentioned. Considering that the Ferron Navy had only to deal with pirates and small insurrections from small groups seeking independence from the Ferron government.

The actual fighting was taking place in high orbit around Ferrol, the capital world of Vega and the Ferron Kingdom. The shipyards where the four Hyperion mods were build were in orbit around Rofus, the ninth planet of Vega, currently on the other side of the blue sun and with that nearly one light hour distant to Ferrol. At this moment only the seventh planet, Reyan, was close enough to Ferrol to send ships, and even those had to cross twenty light minutes.

At least the Ferrons had managed to destroy two of the Cruisers, according to the last messages from Ferrol.

"Dropping from slipstream in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1..."

_Knight_ felt a light tearing in her outer hull as the Quantum Instability field dropped around her and common SpaceTime reclaimed her. For a moment, she compared it to Jump Space and decided that she like Slipstream travel a lot more.

The shield flickered online holding steady as she came over the Doranian Dreadnoughts like a banshee. Guided by her gunners her main weapons, two GOD cannons and one Quantum Singularity Cannon found their marks in the shield of one Dreadnought, ripping into the shield like it was made of cheap tissue paper. Her secondaries spoke just a moment after her main cannons, railgun projectiles and lightnings eating into the thin armor of the Dreadnoughts, ripping it open and exposing it to hard vacuum.

A part of her, the part that was maybe a little the old Earth Force warship and had given her her sentience in the end, was a little disappointed as the Dreadnought vanished in a large ball of plasma as its reactors lost containment.

Next to her, she could feel them with her sensors, _Alabama_ and _Potempkin_ took care of the second Dreadnought, which detonated equally spectacular. _Fearless_ and the four Monsoons on the other hands were spraying the entire space around themselves with high energy plasma bolts, acting as massive Interceptor platforms, hunting down and destroying the offensive fire of the Doranian Cruisers.

_Knight_ reorientated herself, targeting one of the Cruisers and fired. Like three times before her GOD cannons found their marks in the Cruisers shields coring the offending ship, while her Singularity cannon fried another Cruiser like a bug in a bug zapper.

Next to her the two Ancient Assault Vectors mimicked her attack and not even a minute after all ships had dropped from slipstream, the fight was over, leaving the debris of two Doranian Dreadnoughts and five Cruisers to float in a high orbit around Ferrol, the eighth planet of Vega.

Only now she, her crew and the other ships were able to survey the Ferron losses.

On her bridge D closed her eyes and winced. One thing she had to give the Ferrons. They fought like pros and they actually had managed to keep the Doranians in bay until the 1st Expeditionary Fleet had arrived. But for what cost?

_Knight_ counted more than sixty destroyed and heavily damaged Ferron Frigates and smaller vessels, two destroyed and three damaged massive orbital installations and two kinetic impacts on the surface of the planet, where the Doranians had managed to hit the Ferron homeworld. Just fifteen frigates and smaller ships had survived the battle and even than been damaged.

"We are being hailed," on o the com technicians said and Tenchi sighed.

"Put it on screen."

The screen on the bridge changed and showed a young slim build Ferron, in rather plain clothes.

"I am Thort David Kelesh," he said." I want to thank you for your timely intervention. So I was right concerning Earth."

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Ramsey nodded to himself as he stood at the plot, glancing on the three dimensional map of space. _Nautilus_, _Stingray_ and _Los_ _Angeles_ had left Earth orbit a good hour before 1st Expeditionary Fleet. And they were going at a much higher speed as they would go in the future, as Ramsey wanted to know the limits of his ship. And with a speed of currently 2 million c in Quantum 3 override of the Silpstream drive, they had crossed the border of Doranian space a few seconds earlier.

"Switch off the override," he ordered and with a slight rumble of the entire hull, _Nautilus_ dropped to a slower Quantum Slipstream band. At the same moment, the speed indicator switched from 2 million c down to 300.000 c.

He looked at the plot. There was a small outpost close to the course his ship took, at least according to the data from Novak Station. It wasn't much, but there were a few ships stationed there. It would only be a journey of maybe two minutes.

"Nav, course change. Bearing 122-332. Drop out of slipstream at three light hours distance to the star. Com, wish _Stingray_ and _Los_ _Angeles_ good hunting."

Another slight rumble went through the ship as it abruptly changed course while still being in slipstream and than shot towards her new destination. That system, Gamma Sagittarii in Earth catalogs, would be perfect for the trials of the sensory systems.

Two minutes later, _Nautilus_ dropped from slipstream, her engines giving her a short duration push onto a hyperbolic course and than shut down, sending the ship into the inner system in free fall. All over the ship active systems, save for lights shut down, while artificial gravity lowered to one sixth of Earth normal and the passive sensor systems went to active mode.

A long line of small intersecting parts, a modified version of the EFNI EGAD array was unreeled from beneath the middle plasma engine and a minute later _Nautilus_ pulled a ten kilometer long Enhanced Gravitic Anomaly Detector behind her.

Interferometric Optical Sensors began to sweep over the entire inner system, powerful computer systems noting all and any artificial body on the images from the IOS, while radio receivers all over the hull formed a virtual radio dish of the length of _Nautilus_, noting any small electromagnetic emission.

Ships were noted, their gravimetric and electromagnetic characteristics sorted out of the large mountain of data by the computers and than saved in the vast storage files of the ships database, each ship getting an individual numeric ID. And the computer did all this much faster than any human could.

Ramsey still stood at the plot, watching the busy traffic in the inner system. It was a little too busy for being a normal outpost. And there was also the fact that the computer had IDed about sixty Cruisers and fifteen Dreadnoughts. No this was more than just a small outpost. It was a staging area for a battle fleet. The question was, where would those ships go when the fleet was drawn together completely?

He turned, as he heard someone coming up from behind.

"What is it, Jonesy?"

The black man rolled his eyes and mentioned to the plot. With a few fast gestures, he zoomed in a part of the system that was close to Nautilus and very empty, save for one single contact.

"That ship dropped from slipstream just two minutes ago."

Ramsey raised an eyebrow.

"This far out?"

"Thats the interesting thing, sir," Jones answered." The ship sends a distress call on just about every radio and quantum frequency. Rather loud too. According to the call, they are some sort of transport and the 'cargo' had taken over part of the ship."

Ramsey frowned.

"A slave transport," he said and looked at Jones. The look on Jones face showed him that he was thinking the same.

He made a few more gestures and the ship zoomed in, going from a single small point to a real time optical feed from some of the mirrors of the IOS.

"Its only slightly larger than a Hestel."

Ramsey crossed his arms and looked at Jones.

"You want to get it aboard," he notes." We don't have any troops. And who knows about this 'cargo'. They could give the same favor to us."

Jones looked at Ramsey for a long time.

"I think you can understand why I would do this, sir."

Ramsey sighed.

"Distance?"

Jones hid a smile.

"About two million klicks. We could send the shuttle and two TBs to pull it in."

Ramsey nodded and looked back at the plot, hands gripping on the plots edge. The shuttle and the Thunderbirds were modified by Washuu and fit with slipstream drives, so that they could act as long distance manned probes or something similar. They were even modified to carry two 'Barracuda' Anti-ship Attack Vehicles to a specific place.

"Okay. Get it done ASAP. Maybe we can get some more infos from the data core of the transport."

Jones saluted, causing Ramsey to shake his head.

"Aye, sir."

----------------------------------------------------------------

With a wordless scream he launched himself at one of the two last Doranian slavers, while one of his dragonian companions launched herself at the other. A powerful right hook, more powerful than that of any other human hit the left side of the Doranians muzzle, breaking the lower jaw and removing several of the sharp teeth.

The sheer strength behind the punch itself came from much stronger muscle groups, result of Ancient genes activated over the course of several years as after effects of Vree experiments on the body of Joachim Fürst von Bismark.

He was the son of Helmut von Bismark and grandson of Otto von Bismark, born in 1903, just a year before the death of his father. He grew up in a time of military growth, and during the War of 1914 to 1918. He never really had the drive of his grandfather, father or brothers to get into politics, trying to really work instead of anything else. He had build a small company, but it soon collapsed during during the inflation.

He had gone to America, trying to find his luck there, and even founding a new company. It too failed and he had to see how the NSDAP came into power back home in Germany and how Hitler managed to pull the people on his side. Than the Vree had abducted him, experimented on him, froze him and than sold him as a labor slave to the Doranians six or so years ago.

Unfortunately Doranians were extremely tough and could take much punishment to their bodies. The Doranian slaver howled, raising the baseball bat like shock stick, a weapon that could be used as club as well as shocking disobient slaves. Bismark's hand shot out, blocking the weapon with a skill acquired during the number of death matches the Doranians likes to have their slaved in.

A flick of his hand broke the slavers hand, forcing him to drop the shock stick to the ground. The slaver howled again and Bismark dropped to the ground, evading a sloppy punch of the pain crazed feline slaver. The German's hand grabbed the shock stick and rolled away from his former tormentor. He came back to his feet, activated the shock stick and swung it like a baseball bat, hitting the Doranian into the groin.

Like many other races, the Doranians also had their sexual organs in their groin and Bismark watched without any emotion as the Doranian collapsed in pain as high voltage shot into him and his most valuable body part.

Bismark turned to the other slaver, watching as the body hit the ground and his dragonic companion turned the Doranians face into fine paste.

Now he could understand why these Shin'bi were such valued slaves to the Doranians, not to mention exotic. The Shin'bi were very rare from what he knew and only few could afford one of them and they were exclusively used as body guards for higher personalities. Bismark had only seen a Shin'bi as a Doranians body guard once, but the eyes of the dragonic alien had lacked the fierce glow of an untamed, wild being, toughly broken by the Doranians.

It had been the only time when Bismark had been glad to be 'only' a heavy labor slave.

Six Shin'bi had been part of this slave transport, fresh slaves bought from some slaver ring who had the exclusive right to sell them, while the rest had been labor slaves like him. And they had been the only ones willing to try this. Shock collars or not, they had done it.

After more than six years of slavery, Bismark was finally free and would remain being a free man when they managed to get away from this system.

"You okay?" he asked the Shin'bi, Haruka, in Intercosmo.

"Yes," the dragonic alien answered." But I would feel better if we could get away from here."

Bismark nodded and than looked at the other two Shin'bi who had entered the cockpit of the transport. He pointed at the two unconscious Doranians.

"Get them into one of the cells and give the others a kick from me."

The two Shin'bi grinned a moment before moving the two broken and unconscious slavers without much caution.

"Any idea how to fly this thing?" Haruka asked as Bismark dropped into the pilots seat.

Bismark's eyes flew over the controls in front of him, trying to make heads and tails of it, while he squirmed in the seat, which wasn't build for the human body. Than he looked back at Haruka.

"Not really."

For a moment Haruka stared at Bismark, trying to decide if the human was mad or something.

"I kinda hoped that one of the others could fly this ship."

Haruka frowned and looked through the cockpit window.

"You better find out fast."

Bismark followed the Shin'bis glance and found some sort of shuttle as well as two X shaped small craft on the other end.

"Scheisse," he swore in his native language.

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Tenchi had to say that he was impressed. The Red Palace of Thorta, the capital city of Ferrol, was more of a city in the city, but still just one single building. It was also pretty easy to tell how the palace got its name, as the entire palace was build from deep red stone, not just the walls, but also the roofs. Another thing about the Red Palace was that it looked like a giant version of Neuschwanstein.

In fact the drive through from the space port to the palace had gone through the city itself, letting Tenchi take a good look at the Ferrons. The whole city and its inhabitants could have been in Europe during medieval times, but the modern technologies, such as futuristic cars and the like were showing how advanced the Ferrons were.

Tenchi was looking forward to meet Thort Kelesh. The government of Vega was a strange mix of bureaucracy, an absolutist monarchy, an parliamentary monarchy and a federal democratic government like the one of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Thort, the king, was elected for a life time, much like the Pope. The entire government was extremely stable the way it was, but Tenchi knew that there had been quite a few wars between the single colonies over the last 8000 years the Ferrons were in space.

As the car moved through the long roads between parts of the Palace, Tenchi had to suppress laughs at seeing tourists taking pictures of the Ferron Palace Guard in their immaculate white uniforms, who were armed with both modern guns and a halberd, and stood on their posts stiff like rods, much like the guards of Buckingham Palace in London.

Tenchi looked over to Setsuna and Jimmy Carter of all people. Carter had offered to go with 1st Fleet to open diplomatic relations between Earth as a whole and Vega. At the moment Carter pretty much looked out of the windows like a kid, looking at the new world outside, whereas for Tenchi and Setsuna this was just another alien planet.

The car came to a halt and a Palace Guard opened the door. Carter pulled himself together and followed Tenchi and Setsuna out of the car. It was quite of a shock to step from the cold interior of the car into the hot glaring rays of Vega. The ambient temperature of about 45 degrees Celsius and the higher gravity of the planet made all three of them sweating at the spot. Tenchi looked at Setsuna from the corner of his eyes, knowing that it had to be more of a problem to her, as she was, like always, dressed in her skintight black leather outfit.

"Welcome to the Red Palace," he heard a familiar voice, that of Commander Zarek.

Tenchi blinked a few times wondering how the commander had gotten to the Palace earlier than them. Another part of him wondered why they didn't get a big pompous greeting.

"Thank you, Commander," he answered and Zarek nodded.

"I will bring you to Thort Kelesh," Zarek said and turned to the palace doors.

The inside of the palace was at least as pompous as the exterior, build up in countless centuries by the Thorts of Ferrol. Beautiful artwork was next to models of buildings, space ships and armor from various periods of Ferron history. It was a bit like stepping into a museum.

Tenchi snorted as they passed tourist groups on their way through the palace, with some of the tourists making pictures of the three aliens.

"Business as usual," Carter noted," I guess the best way to deal with the attack for the Ferrons."

Tenchi nodded and Zarek lead them into a part of the palace that was closed to the tourists, Palace Guards standing guard.

"The administration center," Zarek said," It's separate from the public part of the palace."

About a minute later they enter a rather large room. It was pretty plain, but the massive desk, the large floating holographic displays and the fact that Thort Kelesh was sitting in the chair behind the desk, talking with several other Ferrons.

But that wasn't the first thing Tenchi noticed however. It was one of the large holograms, showing a very familiar and massive shape, colored in light gray with red striped going over the hull. And that hull was armed with several large turrets.

"You really build a Tillman?" Tenchi asked bewildered.


	21. Chapter 21

Back Home – The Dual War

Warringer

Chapter 20

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Bismark had pulled the former slaves together. There was something strange going on. He was pretty sure that it weren't Doranians who had pulled the transport through slipstream. But he had learned to be careful during his time as slave.

Most of the freed aliens however were a little too passive to really thing about doing anything, only the six Shin'bi and the two Nomards were really in a shape that allowed them to fight now. The Shin'bi because they were new slaves, while the Nomads were tough folk all in all.

He was glad that they had been able to get a few weapons, not much but it should be enough for some resistance if needed. The six shock sticks from the slavers and four rifle like weapons. The Shin'bi had taken the shock sticks, as they were trained for close quarters combat, while Bismark and the Nomads had taken the rifles.

Bismark looked out of the cockpit windows, observing where they were brought to. A black shape slowly became visible from the ink blackness of space, nearly as dark colored as the surrounding space. Than on an unseen command light switched on, bathing parts of the shape in while light.

Bismark could see the shapes of something that looked very much like weapon turrets, like he had seen on German Battleships when his father had shown him Wilhelmshafen back in the war. He was unable to tell just how large the turrets and the ship itself were, as he lacked any reference point. However, he could read a large dark gray, but still visible script running along the bow of the ship.

"Nautilus," he read out loud, clearly surprised about the latin letters.

Next to him Haruka raised the eye ridge her race had instead of eyebrows. She was something of the unofficial leader of the six Shin'bi, being the eldest of them from the looks of it.

"You seem surprised," she said.

Bismark continued to glance at the massive hull and nodded.

"It's a little complicated," he explained." That was the name of the ship, I guess. It was written in latin letters from my homeworld."

Haruka blinked surprised.

"I didn't know that your homeworld had space ships."

"Neither did I."

For a moment he remembered '20.000 Leagues Under the Sea' from Jules Verne. Than he remembered that he looked very much like a cross between Robinson, Tarzan with a bit Frankenstein thrown in for the good measure. He chuckled a little remembering that his father would have beaten him black and blue for reading those idiotic books as young boy.

Outside the Transport was directed towards a large open hangar door. The small crafts pulled it into the hangar before disengaging their tow cables and the transport settled down on the deck.

Bismark frowned. He just hoped that everything went alright in the next minutes.

"Lets get to the airlock," he said and grabbed the Doranian rifle.

He and Haruka went towards the airlock, where the other Shin'bi and the Nomads were already waiting.

"Okay," Bismark said." No shooting until I say otherwise. We're going to see how this works out."

The others nodded and they stared on the airlock symbols. All knew that there was a vacuum on the other side and that they had to wait for the pink light that indicated that the hangar was repressurized. They didn't have to wait long.

One of the Shin'bi forced the airlock open, a short wind showing that there was a slightly lower pressure outside.

Bismark was the first to leave the transport, jumping the three meter to the ground as if he had just jumped from a low step. The energy rifle was pointed forward, even if it was a little to large for him, looking more like a 08/15 machine gun.

An airlock in the hangar opened and Bismark wasn't all that surprised to see several humans in blue uniforms, pointing rifles at him and the Shin'bi and Nomads that now dropped from the transport behind him.

After a moment another human in a khaki uniform came from the airlock and walked towards them two of the men in blue following him. The man in khaki had one of these new baseball caps on his head, like Bismark had seen during his time in the US when his companion had invited him to a baseball game. The cap was blue and read 'US Navy'.

Bismark lowered the rifle and stepped towards the man.

"Captain Nemo, I presume," he said dryly in English with his very notable German accent." I an Joachim von Bismark."

He reached out to shake 'Captain Nemos' hand, while the man blinked a few times.

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Ramsey blinked a few times as the shook the hand of the man that had introduced himself as Joachim von Bismark. The man was clearly an Earth human, he had a very notable German accent in his English, had called him 'Captain Nemo', an all to clear reference to _Nautilus_ and the 'I presume' was also a sowhat clear reference to Earth history. But the grip of the hand was a little stronger than he would have thought.

"Captain Marco Ramsey," he finally said, introducing himself." United States Navy, Commander of the _USS_ _Nautilus_."

Bismark chuckled a little.

"At least I was right that you were the Captain."

Ramsey noted the very thick metal collar around the neck of Bismark, the run down clothes, more rags actually, the layers upon layers of dirt and the very long beard, knowing that this man was one of the slaves from the transport, just like the armed aliens behind him.

Six of those aliens were anthropomorphic dragons, slightly taller than Bismark and Ramsey and clearly distinguished as male and female, while the other two were white furred centauroid creatures, with several wolf-like features, one larger compared to the other. The dragons were armed with some sort of spiked metal baseball bat, while the centauroids were holding the same kind of rifle as Bismark.

"I take it that you are the cause of the distress call," Ramsey said and noted that Bismark became more serious." I guess you can be glad that we were there first. A Doranian Cruiser was just ten minutes behind us."

Bismark nodded and than looked at the armed sailors behind Ramsey.

"May I ask you for todays date?"

Ramsey had a pretty good idea why Bismark wanted the date.

"September 25th 2003."

Bismarks face first showed surprise, making place for untamed fury and hate. Even through Ramsey knew that it wasn't directed at him, he took a step back.

"70 years," Bismark spat out before switching to his mother language." Wenn ich diese grauen Hurenböcke erwische, drehe ich ihnen die Hälse um."

That was followed by a stream of curses in a number of alien languages.

Ramsey let Bismark swear, while he looked at the transport, directing his attention to the seemingly eldest dragon, a female by the looks of it.

"What did you do with the slavers?" he asked in Intercosmo.

"Beat them up," she answered, showing two rows of sharp teeth in am expression that seemed to be a grin." Than we threw them into one of the transport cells."

Ramsey nodded

"You were the only 'slaves'?"

The woman frowned.

"No, there are eight others still in the transport, but they are passive about the whole thing."

Ramsey nodded again and than turned to one of his crewmen.

"Chief, organize a ladder and get your men inside the transport. Get the slavers to the cells and all former slave to med-bay for a complete check up. Than quarter them in the Marine barracks. Since we don't have Marines yet, we should have enough space there."

"Aye, sir."

He turned back to Bismark as the Chief gave his orders and smiled.

"I think you really want to get a shower."

Bismark just grinned.

"Its time for one," he said." I had my last back in 1934. I'm covered in dirt of 70 years. And I could need a good shave."

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Mancuso shook his head as he looked at the report from Ramsey.

"I should have seen this coming," he muttered and sighed.

"I gets us needed informations about Doranian technology and psychology," his aide noted." Better than anything Langley can come up with. Not to mention that we now have some more dirt about the Doranians."

Mancuso glared at his aide for a moment.

"I still don't have to like it."

Than he sighed.

"Okay, I want you to leak the information about the Doranian slavery to CNN. Make sure that they get the information about Mr. von Bismark. I'm pretty sure the Germans want to give the Doranians a piece of mind after this."

The aide raised an eyebrow in a very Spock way.

"Sir, the Germans want to give them a piece of mind already. Hamburg, Berlin and the Ruhrgebiet got hit very bad. A million dead, another million still missing and three million injured."

"Just do it, Lieutenant."

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Ramsey chuckled a bit as he looked at the now very cleaned up Joachim von Bismark. If you didn't see the US Navy Service Khaki he was currently wearing, as there were no civilian clothing aboard in his size, he looked very much like his grandfather Otto Fürst von Bismark, just with more hair.

Bismark stretched as he entered the mess hall and walked towards the table Ramsey was sitting at. He handed a box back.

"Thank you for the razor blade."

"No problem, Mr. Bismark," Ramsey answered with a smile.

"Please call be Joachim, Captain. I insist."

Ramsey chuckled.

"No problem, Joachim. But only if you call me Marco."

This time Bismark chuckled.

"A magnificent ship you have here. A far way from the liner I used to come to the United States. To think that technology advanced this far in just seventy years."

"Well," Ramsey said," The ship is a little too far advanced for our technology. Up until two weeks ago, we didn't even really know that extraterrestrial life even existed. We had just put a few men on he moon thirty years ago."

Bismark blinked and than looked unbelieving at Ramsey.

"What?"

"We had bad luck and the Doranians dropped by. They dropped a bunch of rocks at us and destroyed a number of cities. Including parts of Hamburg, Berlin and the Ruhrgebiet in Germany."

Bismarks face became very serious.

"Verfluchte Katzen," he cursed.

"We had some help with Earth defense and destroyed the attack fleet. Or we would be slaves now too."

"Or pray."

Ramsey nodded.

"As far as we can tell... Anyway, Earth got a few powerful friends. Two of them are currently setting us up with a few ships to defend Earth, while we build up the necessary infrastructure to build our own ships."

Bismark nodded.

"Than what are you doing here?"

"Operation 'Red October'," Ramsey said with a grin." We gather information about Doranian systems, fleet strength and cause general ruckus. We just started though. We're going to leave a satellite in this system and move to the next system."

Again Bismark nodded.

"Than we won't get back to Earth very soon," he noted.

"No, you will need to be patient. But I believe you can help us with closer information about the Doranians. My superior officer reminded me that we have to treat the slavers according to the Geneva Convention."

Bismark frowned.

"I would have like to help you 'gathering' other information..."

Ramsey sighed.

"I knew you would."

Than he looked over to the group of Nomads and Shin'bi, who currently were sitting at another table and talked.

"But I'm sure that we will find something for you to do. But before we do..."

Ramsey took a laptop from the bench beside him, placed it on the table and than nodded towards an ensign.

"... I believe that you would like to know what happened in the last seventy years. We got a few history books from Earth and Ensign Williams will help you to work with this computer, so that you can read them."

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"I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

That quote from Oppenheimer, who quoted it from the Indian Bhagavad Gita, came to Washuu's mind as she stared at the holo screen and the results of yet another idea hatched by a Earth human mind.

The screen in front of her showed a planet, or rather the remains of a planet after a 'Jump Bomb' by US Navy Captain Miles Kantor, who was working at the Pentagon. At the moment he was the head of a new office that had been build during the last few days to channel the US efforts to understand the new technology. Kantor's office was in effective contact with Washuu and Nathan, like many other similar offices all over the globe.

The Jump Bomb was simple, easy to build and effective in its workings. And it was a device that had every right to be called 'Planet Destroyer'. The simulation she had done had several runs, each in a different distance to an Earth sized planet. And it had always destroyed the planet, even from a distance of a million kilometers.

Okay, from a million kilometers distance if only had cocked away the atmosphere and surface of the hemisphere turned to the 'Jump Bomb', but even that did effectively destroy the planet. Completely planet busting was achieved from a minimum distance of 40.000 kilometers. And the closer to a planet the bomb was set of, the smaller the resulting rubble was. At a hundred kilometers above the planet, it was reduced to bits the size of grain of fine sand.

The worst thing about it was that it was frighteningly easy to build. One just needed two small one-shot, instable Jump Point generators, easy to build with sub par components, and strap them to a small Quantum 0 slipstream drive with a small guidance system for terminal approach.

You than needed to pre-charge both jump drives, launch it outside the target system and it would get to slipstream, approaching the target system. Than it would drop from slipstream and activate the jump drives, creating a pair of Jump Points inside of each other. The resulting detonation would devastate everything up to two million kilometers around it, destroy a planet and even get through upper Quantum three level shielding.

And that was the problem with this 'Jump Bomb'. It was easy to build, small enough to be transported by a Monsoon over great distances, no one besides the Earth humans and maybe those Ferrons knew how it worked and could be produced in great quantities over a short amount of time.

And it gave Earth a weapon that was more powerful than everything every other race had, besides maybe some of the weapons she had designed herself. It gave Earth a weapon that was so terrible that they could effectively threaten every power in the galaxy without much more than setting it of close to an unpopulated world.

Again parallels with nuclear weapons came to her mind. The Jump Bomb was on a interstellar scale the same as a nuclear device was on a planetary scale. And it could be build with even Quantum 1 level technology.

And this weapon showed another thing about mankind yet again. Their great potential in just about everything.

Mankind had the racial talent to do more with the technology it had than any other race. They used these technologies to the logical end and didn't simply abandon them if they had a new, better technology. They would combine technologies that weren't meant to be combined.

For a moment she laughed. The rest of the galaxy would see mankind as upshot barbarians who would never have their understanding for art. But they would be wrong. Washuu had visited some museums and had seen that the artists of mankind had produced more Great Art in the last three thousand years than any other artist in the galaxy over the last ten thousand years.

Than she thought back at the weapon and a few other things she knew of Earth. They also had the potential to be as inhuman as possible. Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot came to mind. And the recent terroristic attacks only strengthened that thought.

Mankind would change the face of the galaxy. One way or the other.

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"Slipstream Event!" came the report from the sensory technician on duty," Distance 50.000 klicks."

Ramsey frowned. _Nautilus_ had changed the system just two hours ago and were now in another system that was listed as 'Outpost'. He turned his head around as he heard the door to the bridge open. Bismark and one of the Shin'bi, Haruka he believed, entered.

"Three ship. Positive ID. Ship identified as Doranian Dreadnaught, ID Number 042-221-331, and Doranian Cruisers, ID 228-553-040 and 293-696-589. Course Vector Pattern indicates Patrol movement. Gamma Sagittarii, Nu Sagittarii, HR 6960. Rest of Patrol Pattern is open."

Ramsey nodded. The ID numbers had been randomly generated and crossed from a list to individually ID any ship they encountered and as far as he could tell, the catalog was coming along nicely, just like it did back on Earth with submarines. Even out here, each ship had an individual signature.

He glanced over to the two visitors. They seemed to be a little surprised about what was going on, especially Bismark. He noted a short glimpse of hate crossing the Germans face before he turned back to the bridge crew.

"Okay people," he said," Time to test our weapon systems."

He could see a few evil smiles, but chose to let it slide.

"Lets see what those little Barracudas can do. Give me a full spread of both barracuda turrets on both Cruisers and get me a fire solution for the spinal laser on the Dreadnought."

A holographic display appeared in the air above the bridge, showing a large representation of the _Nautilus_, while the three Doranian ships were smaller icons in a corner. _Nautilus_ turned about to present its broad side towards the unsuspecting Doranian warships, while the remained on her course and the turreted twin missile launchers turned to face the Cruisers.

Ramsey pulled his old stop watch from his pocket and

Red lines spread out from the launchers and showed the targeting solution for the Barracuda Antiship Attack Vehicles. The lines crossed the course of the Doranians a good distance in front of the Doranians, as it was simple celestial mechanics to tell the best course.

"Fire spread one," the fire control officer called out and a two pairs of blue dots started to follow the red lines," Laser com link established."

Four Barracudas had been fired, accelerated to move towards their targets before they activated their engines and started the Terminal approach. All the while they got course corrections from the powerful passive sensors of Nautilus, like torpedoes fired from submarines.

Another four lines spread out from the turrets and meet at the same part of the Doranians course as the first four lines.

"Fire Spread two. Laser com link established."

Another four blue dots followed the second set of red lines, slightly faster and on another orbit. They would hit their target at the same time as the first missiles would hit their target. Ramsey started his stopwatch and looked back at the hologram.

Again the massive bulk of _Nautilus_ turned about, this time tom present her bow towards the Doranian Dreadnought. Again a thin red line shot out from the bow of _Nautilus_, but this time hit the largest Droranian Icon on the display.

For a moment he looked over to the two guests before looking at the stopwatch and the hologram.

"Twenty seconds," he said and his eyes followed the blue dots of the Barracuds AAVs.

It was silent on the bridge and if someone talked they did it very silent. It was a trained reflex every submariner had and that would need some time to lose in the interstellar medium of space where the molecules were so thin that they didn't carry sound.

"Ten seconds. Ready for Spinal Laser."

Deep within the ship capacitors were charged and shutters readied to pour the energy from the capacitors into the laser.

"Five Seconds. Ready for 'Swiss cheese' fire protocol."

The name of the fire protocol was chosen because the spinal laser would fire at its highest frequency, about 120 shots per minute, for ten seconds.

"Two, one, now."

On the screen the blue dots of the AAVs lit up, indicating that they had activated their Ion drives for terminal approach, while they were still a thousand kilometers from their targets. They moved closer and closer at such speeds that the Doranians couldn't really react.

"Spinal Laser."

The massive spinal laser of _Nautilus_ fired for ten seconds, its normal optical beams lancing out at the Dreadnought and stabbing it repeatedly through the tin hull and deep into vital systems, as the crew hadn't reacted yet to the AAVs. Without shields the Dreadnought was defenseless.

"Perfect timing," Ramsey said, smiling slightly as he saw how the icons of the Doranian vessels disappeared from the display and the crew allowed themselves to cheer.

Out in space three short lived suns flared up, slightly illuminating the black surface of _Nautilus_.

"Roll in the EGADS array," he than ordered," we make a short distance slipstream jump and drop the next recon sat. Than we leave this system for new hunting grounds."

Having said that, he put the stopwatch back into his pocket and turned to the two visitors.

"Are all space battles like that?" Bismark asked after a moment.

"I would hope so," Ramsey said." But I doubt it. _Nautilus_ however will fight all battles like this, if we can help it. The crew has to defend its honor as submariners."


	22. Chapter 22

Back Home – The Dual War

Warringer

Chapter 21

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Yosho leaned back at the bark of Fuhano, his eyes closed for a moment. His face showed no expression as he listened to the mental sitrep he got from his tree. She still had a number of her sensory systems and so she had noted a few anomalies in the terroristic nuclear attacks in San Diego, Exeter, Vladivostok and Lyon. Of cause she had gotten the best scans of the attacks from the close Vladivostok.

Even with all those bombs going off as Ground Burst, they had destroyed much of those cities, but mostly the ship yards that had been modified to produce the first human space warships.

Yosho knew for a fact that none of the nukes should have been as destructive as they were. He knew this because Fuhano had discovered the anomaly, a short spike that indicated that something had amplified the force of the detonation. More importantly it happened to be CV-Embinium, a metal that was used by all races in the galaxy in their Quantum Slipstream drives.

Mankind would have discovered the crystal in a few decades, but not this fast. Nor should the terrorists have been able to use it to amplify their nukes. The only deposit of the material he knew of was right beneath the shrine, the place where he had imprisoned Ryoko, as CV-Eminium was very useful to bind her powers.

They had to have gotten the metal somewhere else. But he would be damned if he knew where.

"I take it that this is the Space Tree you are bonded with," a voice suddenly said and startled him.

He opened his eyes and looked into the face of a Narn, the only Narn on Earth in fact, G'Kar. Yosho nodded.

"She is," he answered.

G'Kar raised the Narn equivalent of an eyebrow and his gloved hand ran over the trees bark.

"I heard that there are no places besides Jurai and one other planet, where Space Trees can take root."

Yosho chuckled slightly.

"I guess I'm lucky than."

G'Kar turned around to look over the forest around them.

"I heard that you plan a meeting with the Minbari Ambassador," G'Kar said after a moment.

Yosho shrugged internally. He knew that G'Kar would have heard of the plans to meet Ambassador Delenn. He was currently living at the Masaki home after all.

"Yes I do."

The unasked question hung in the air between them.

"I overheard something that should be of interest for you, back at the 'Embassy'."

Yosho raised an eyebrow. Officially the Masaki Shrine was the Jurian Embassy, but still the Shrine and as such everyone could enter if they wanted. Through Rainbow, the Japanese government and the Jurian Guardians were restricting access after the assassination attempt on Sairyo.

"And what did you overhear?"

"Something that could be a problem for Jurai, Minbar, the Galaxy as a whole. I don't really know what to think of that, but it seems that your sister, the older one that is, has a few interesting thoughts about this meeting. Something about 'showing the Minbari their place'. I'm pretty sure that it would be a problem and that you should meet Ambassador Delenn at a neutral place, not here as you planned."

Yosho groaned.

"Did she talk with Sairyo?"

"I think she did. He was very interested about her plan."

Yosho frowned. From what he knew, Sairyo had a very negative attitude towards the Minbari, like a good part of the Jurians. It was only logical that he would listen to something like that. And he wasn't very thoughtful about political consequences.

"Did they talk about what Ayeka wanted to do?"

G'Kar shook his head.

"They changed the topic before they could come to that."

Yosho frowned. This could lead to a few more problems, and considering that Ayeka became more and more unstable, he had to do something.

Over the last past days, she had developed a sort of paranoia, viewing any woman that came close to her as threat to her 'relationship' with Tenchi. She had been near hurting Mihoshi two times. At the moment, she thought that _Dark_ _Knight_ had a bad influence on Tenchi and the way it looked like, she seemed to view the female Minbari Ambassador as potential lover for Tenchi.

He really needed to do something, anything to at least calm her down. Or else she could cause the War that was looming over the horizon for several centuries now.

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Afghanistan had beautiful landscapes and used to have several of the greatest pieces of art in the Middle East. It was also a nation that had good times and bad times. Some of these bad times had been a war when the Soviet Union had tried to get into the nation and take it over.

Afghanistan proved to be the Soviets analog to the US Vietnam. Even with far superior weapons, the Soviets have been send packing by the Afghanistan people. But it also lead to another dark piece of history of this nation as the Taliban came into power and established their own version of a muslin fundamentalist nation.

And Afghanistan was a nation where the most sought out man on the planet Earth found shelter. But that would change, very soon.

The sound of high powered jet engines however disturbed the largely peaceful landscapes of Afghanistan, as Tomahawk Cruise Missiles speed over the land, following the ground in low altitudes. Each of them was equipped with Cluster Munitions and Conventional Warheads and followed their programs towards their targets.

Not far behind them followed the entire number of F/A-18 Hornets of the _USS Kitty Hawk_, part of Task Force 70 of the US 7th Fleet. Task Force 70 had been on a cruise towards the Persian Gulf and conveniently close to the the shores of Pakistan.

Even further behind the F/A-18 were a number of C-5 Galaxy, carrying the first parts of the 101st Airborne Division towards Kandahar to secure the airport of the city. Control of the city and its airport was needed to bring troops into Afghanistan.

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Slowly the fleet that was left behind in Earth Orbit, called Home Guard by CNN, spread out. Since the 1st Expeditionary Fleet had left Earth, both Washuu and Nathan had worked to bring new ships into service. Nathan had finished two Ancient Assault Vectors, one of them given to Germany, the _Graf_ _Zeppelin_, and the other to Japan, the _JDF_ _Shinano_, while Washuu had finished two Monsoon AEGIS variants, the US _USS_ _Firefinder_ and the French _Maginot_.

Now there were five Ancients, one Lupo, one Vigilante and five Monsoons ready to defend Earth, together with two GOD satellites, five Missile Pods stationed at Sun-Earth L1 and twenty of the newly discovered Solar Trees.

One of the main trunks of one of these Solar Trees, Shabazza, had become the Defense Center of Earth very fast. Over the last two days, since 1st Expeditionary Fleet had left Earth, shuttles had brought equipment and people to Shabazza and with help from Washuu, mainly, several of the large cavern like rooms at the base of the trunk had been set up as main Control Room. Several of the neighboring rooms had been converted into offices, briefing and conference rooms, but there were still many things to do.

At the moment all Admirals of the national Space Fleets of the United States, Russia, Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan and India, where looking at the massive holographic plot in the center of the Control Room. It showed how the combined Earth Defense Fleet was currently spreading out to cover the area around the small vessel that was indicated at red, as enemy.

"I got this feeling that she is playing with us," Admiral Davis said.

"Like a cat with a mouse," Admiral Dubinin noted.

"We..."

The head of the Japanese Space Self-Defense Force hadn't had time to say much more as the holographic display exploded in a brief show of brute force and the symbols of the Earth Defense Fleet disappeared.

Everyone stared at the display with their mouth hanging open. The display flickered and the Fleet reappeared.

"I'm glad that she is on our side," Jackson noted." I'd hate to loose the fleet just like that."

The other Admirals in the Control Room just nodded.

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Satai or better Ambassador Delenn was standing on the large balcony and looked over the Lake Geneva. The building that now housed the Embassy of the Minbari Federation and the Galactic Federation, was given to her and her ambassadorial staff by the United Nations, as far as she understood an organization much like the Federation or the Union. But it was still sowhat different. But it was hard to really tell in just two days since the arrival on this planet.

She was very confused about these humans, as the people of this planet called themselves. She knew that this planet was a Jurian Colony, but the most of the people she had meet were looking so unlike the Jurians that she doubted that simple adaption to the planet could have changed the appearance of these humans that much.

She could also tell that these humans didn't know that their planet was a colony, or at least used to be until Emperor Azusa had given Earth its independence on the request of Price Tenchi Masaki.

But the thing that confused her the most was the fact that this planet didn't have a single government, but rather numerous different nations and that they fought wars between them. At the moment she knew of at least six different wars going on on this planet. Three wars in nations called China, Afghanistan and Indonesia, and the other three in a continent named Africa.

She shook her head at this. As Minbari she couldn't understand that these humans were killing each other. It just showed how primitive they really were.

But on the other side, when she looked at the human paintings in the large building that was the Minbari Embassy, and some of the music she had heard, from someone named Mozart or something similar, she could tell that they were also quite artistic.

She sighed. These humans needed guidance in their further development. They needed to be brought into the Federation. Even if just to spite the Jurians.

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_HMAS_ _Anzac_ cruised through the sea west of Sumatra in the Straight of Malacca, together with two smaller _HAMS_ _Bendigo_ and _Ipswich_. They had assisted several container frighters in the last few days and the commander looked very concerned towards the coastline of Sumatra. The fundamentalists in Aceh, had punched their way straight through half of the island and more and more military unites were coming to them, including about half of the former Indonesian Fleet as of last night.

None of the people on the three ship however thought that someone was watching them.

Deep within the warm waters of the Malacca Straight a lone Indonesian submarine cruised beneath a thermokline. The German build Type 209 was part of the Fundamentalists Navy and ready to do their jobs. Not all of the crew really cared about the fact that the commander and a good number of rest of the crew were behind the Fundamentalists, but they didn't complain. If they did, they would find themselves inside of a torpedo tube, ready to find out if they made good torpedoes.

Silently the covers of the torpedo tubes opened, while the Anzac and its escorts never noticed anything. Who would think that the Fundamentalists in Aceh had a submarine?

Six torpedoes launched from the submarine from short distance and raced towards the three Royal Australian Navy ships. The crews didn't really know what had happened and for a few moments the shock of the suddenly appearing torpedoes caused panic, before countermeasures could be engaged.

The _Anzac_ and the _Ipswich_ never made it. The one of the two torpedoes meant for the _Anzac_ detonated midships, breaking the frigates back and sinking it in less than a minute. The smaller _Ipswich_ was worse off. Both of the torpedoes detonated beneath the ship, lifting it clear of the water, the pressure from the detonations crumbling the hull and sinking it.

_Bendigo_ was better of, but not by far. Only one of the torpedoes detonated close to her, destroying part of her stern hull, taking the two propellers out of action. She drifted on the water for several minutes until the submarine launched another torpedo, destroying the partol boat.

However radio transmissions had been send by the Bendigo, letting the International Indonesia Task force know that they had just lost three ships and that they needed to be on guard from a submarine.

A few moments later the submarine resurfaced for a few minutes, sending its own radio transmission before diving again to move towards Banda Aceh.

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President Jack Ryan could feel a headache coming as he looked at the large Plasma screen of the TV in the Oval Office. The Pentagon had just confirmed the sinking of three Australian ships in the Malacca Straight and he could already see on CNN that there were six other missing ships, freighters at that.

Worse, Bin Laden and Al Quaeda had confessed to the terroristic attacks on various countries, both the nuclear and the string of non nuclear attacks all over the rest of the world in the last two days. And now, the Imams in Aceh were using the TV stations on the island to broadcast a video message that pretty much called every Muslim to a Jihad against the unbelievers and those using alien technology.

The situation was going to spiral out of control very fast. At least the first attack on Afghanistan was going as according to plans. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were responding to the Russian pressure and allowed the New Allies as bases for their attacks against Afghanistan.

The term 'New Allies' had been coined by CNN to name the alliance of nations that had been hit by terroristic attacks. The United States had been the initiator of this alliance and the United Kingdom, the Russian Republic, France, Germany and Japan had entered the alliance very fast. Spain and India had entered the alliance just yesterday, after an attack on the railway system of Madrid and the detonation of a freighter loaded with fertilizer in Bombay, resulting in destruction akin to a small tactical nuke.

But not only did the situation with Afghanistan and Indonesia go AWOL, the situation in China was also spiraling down to a large scale civil war like it hadn't be fought since before WWII. To make things worse, both sides had nuclear weapons and both were willing to use them.

He knew that there were voices to use the Home Guard to step in, but using those ships on Earth targets would lead to much more problems than they solved.

The door to the Oval Office opened and Arnold van Damm entered. Ryan glanced at his Chief of Staff.

"More bad news?"

Van Damm looked at the TV and winced as he looked at the sinking bulk of the _Galaxy_ _Shenandoah_, a ship that had been rescued a few days earlier, but now had been attacked by a former Indonesian submarine. He looked back at Ryan.

"No, I think you will like to hear some good news for a change."

Ryan just nodded and gestured to the couch opposite of the couch he was sitting in. Van Damm sat down and handed Ryan a manila folder.

"It seems that we can rely on Jimmy to get us a few sweet deals."

Ryan raised an eyebrow and looked down at the folder. He flew over the report in the folder and than smiled for the first time in the last two days.

Jimmy Carter really had done it, in just two days no less. The result of the talks between him and Thort Kelesch was now sitting in his hands.

Earth and the Ferron Kingdom were now partners in a Mutual Defense Treaty. But not only that, but the Ferrons had also entered a Trade Agreement, as well as a partial technology transfer with a small added bonus. The Technological Transfer gave the Ferrons the plans to build Slipstream Drives and Quantum Shields, while Earth got the plans of the Gravitic Cannon, as well as two mobile shipyards.

While the shipyards were old and could only build ships up to the size of the Olympus class, but Thort Kelesch had reassured Carter that they were in peak condition. Both of the mobile shipyards were also able to build three ships at the same time and Ryan was pretty sure that there was a way to build larger ships with their help. They would certainly make life a little easier.


	23. Chapter 23

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 22

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Tenchi smiled a little. In the past two days, Carter had really outdone himself. He had secured a trade agreement, a limited tech exchange, a Mutual Defense Treaty and as an added bonus, two mobile shipyards for Earth.

He himself had also worked with the Ferrons. Part of his work was making himself familiar with Ferrons tactics and ships. Of cause he had been very surprised when he had found out that the Ferrons had build a Tillman, a 'Hyperion hull from the _Maru's_ database' they called it. It still was a Tillman, based on the Alpha variant from during the Dilgar War, heavily modified of cause. The other three EF-based ships were classical Hyperions, even if they were adapted to the Ferron techbase, much like the Tillman.

And there was another very interesting thought about the Ferrons Hyperion and Tillman variants. Those ships were designed to carry the smaller frigates, corvettes and gunboats of the Ferron Navy, much like the _Maru_ had been modified to carry.

The Ferrons had set up their own 1st Expeditionary Fleet and attached it to the 1st Expeditionary Fleet of Earth. In the end these ships were to be the mobile defensive line of both systems and if the _Hamburg_ returned from delivering a jump space beacon to Earth, the movement between the two systems would be a matter of a about half an hour, moving through jump space at full burn. It would certainly be a very interesting sight if an attacking fleet meet the 'Bonehead Maneuver'.

And than there were a pair of mobile ship yards the Ferrons had given to Earth as part of the tech exchange. Both were in peak condition, Tenchi had send some technicians over to take a look at them to make sure of that, and Ferron computer specialists were currently setting up an English version of the software of the ship yards. They would be send towards Earth, accompanied by the Rofus to open jump points for the two shipards.

From the datafiles he had over the ship yards, all you needed to do was placing them on an asteroid to feed them with raw materials and they could start working. Of cause there was a need of trained personal, but the Ferrons were pretty much like Earth Force in this. While a good part of the production process was automated, and could also build EF standard systems, most of the final stages of manufacturing a ship needed to be done by personal going EVA. Another very nice feature was that the ship yards could be used to build new ship yards, with the plans for the mobile ship yards being part of the tech exchange. But even than they were pretty much restricted to building ships up to the size of an Olympus.

"Tenchi," he heard D's voice and she glomped into him.

Okay, he may be glad to be back, and away from the heat and the high gravity of the planet, but he wasn't sure about _Knight's_ avatar.

"If all Earth Force officers get that kind of greeting, I'm going to emigrate to Earth."

That voice belonged to Admiral Kertal, the commanding officer of the Ferron 1st Expeditionary Fleet. He was one of those Ferrons who looked like a dwarf dipped in blue color. He was small and of a compact build even for his race and proud owner of a neatly trimmed thick beard, with two strands of hair braided and held by copper clips. And from what Tenchi knew about him at the moment, he was a very decent guy with a great sense of humor.

D giggled a bit, before detaching herself from Tenchi.

"Sorry, but this is only done to one person," she said and grinned at the Admiral.

"Two, if you count Setsuna," the voice of K said rounding a corner.

Tenchi shook his head, while Kertal looked bemused.

"It seems that you are a magnet for good looking women," he noted, causing Tenchi to groan." Of cause I prefer a Sicha woman to your girls."

"It's more of a curse, I would think," Tenchi answered, got a hit on the head from D and K at the same time and a good natured laugh from Kertal." Ow..."

Kertal shook his head, and his face grew serious.

"Lets cut the fun and talk about that suggestion about Task Forces. It seems to be a very good idea."

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General Kerkal, Suppreme Commander of the Doranian Protectorate Navy, paced around in the room, like most felines would do in his situation. In the center of the room hovered the display of the latest outpost of the Protectorate, through the word 'Outpost' was a major understatement.

Keravok Station wasn't a mere outpost. It was the most powerful station ever build by the Doranian people, even if it meant mostly heavy labor by the slave races. Keravok was also the largest installation ever build outside of the core world of the Protectorate.

Consisting of five ten kilometer diameter asteroids, interconnected by more than thirty kilometer long tubular beams, the station was patterned after the most holy symbol of the Doranian people, the Pentagram. It was armed with the latest weapons and shields, both of the newly reached Quantum 2 level.

Not many people knew that the best interrogators and engineers had needed decades to crack the last secrets behind the Stribe technology. The Stribe had resisted far longer than anyone in High Command had thought was possible. That was until one Stribe had told his interrogators that they could simply switch of the feeling of pain. From there it was only a small step to inducing pain without the blood and injuries as the interrogators preferred.

And now he had gotten the last messages from Keravok Station and the missing Invasion fleet. The last word they had gotten was that the helpless new hunting world had fought and won against the fleet.

Without really realizing what he did, he grabbed a nearby Stribe slave and ripped his head off, dropping the liveless body to the ground, ignoring the few screams of pain.

He has lost more than 90 percent of the Invasion fleet to a helpless planet! A fleet that consisted of 50 Cruisers and ten Dreadnoughts. And the rest of the fleet had been lost as they investigated a strange sighting between the prey planet and Keravok Station. Something about a system where none should be.

The last thing he had heard from the rest of the fleet was that they had found another inhabited planet in a seemingly lifeless system.

He continued to ignore the lifeless body of the Stribe on the ground, breaking the spine and several bones as he stomped down on the ribcage in range.

He also ignored the other slaves, from the reptilian Race, as they hurried towards the corpse to remove it and clean up the mess.

Again Kerkal's glance went towards the hologram in the center of the room. Keravok had been build just for one specific task, preparing an invasion on the Narn Regime. At the moment the Narn were still weak from their last war of independence against the Centauri and they just screamed to be taken as slaves and prey.

The Corian Expanse...

An area of space that was surrounded by myths and rumors. Rumors told that the last of the Dilgar had found refuge somewhere in the Expanse. Other rumors and myths told that strange things happened there. But there had only been one place in the Expanse where everyone had useful information about, Novak Station. The station all had begun with.

Kerkal hated to remember how the Protector had reacted to the first lost fleet, send to Novak Station to finally remove this place from the galactic map. The other races would have thanked the Protectorate...

His thoughts went back to the Expanse. The Doranians had never been interested in this empty area of space. There had been no pray at all and it had been a surprise to find a single planet in the center of it. Perfect for training the troops for the Invasion of the Narn Regime.

He stopped in his pacing and again glanced at the station.

He never realized that he was watched by something moving in the shadows, neither that he suddenly had an idea not of his own.

He smiled as the idea came to his mind. It was perfect. He could get three conquests at the same time.

He moved over to a communication terminal and gave his orders. Two complete fleets of ships would make their way to Keravok, while two fleets would advance to the newly discovered planets. They couldn't stand the might of the dedicated invasion fleets.

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Thort David Kelesh shook his head again.

"If we like it or not," he said as he looked at Lesur, one of the sub-Thorts." We can't just simply talk to those Doranians and hope they go away."

Lesur, leader of a very pacifistic party in the government, someone wanting to stop all expanses into the military and convert all ships of the Navy into freighters and pleasure ships, glared at Kelesh again.

"They are intelligent and sentient beings," he said and looked deep into the eyes of the Thort." They are going to listen."

Kelesh didn't really know if Lesur was delusional or just simply naive. Kelesh had studied the databases of Earth and the Intelligence Service of the Kingdom, normally working against pirates and other illegal organizations, had created a psychological dossier with the help of Thorta, the Artificial Intelligence of the Ferron Global Network. And neither Kelesh, the IS, nor Thorta really liked the contents of that dossier.

"Even if they are intelligent, they are still feral and behave much like a Horums. The IS and Thorta agree that they can't be reasoned with. Not without a technology level that is much higher than ours."

Lesur shuddered a little. The Horum was one of the largest predators on Ferrol and as a Sicha, Lesur had a fair share of experience with these large feline creatures.

"They would rip any negotiator apart, before dancing on his remains."

Lesur's glare intensified.

"The Fleet has to have threatened them somehow. They wouldn't have attacked otherwise."

Kelesh glared back and if their looks could have killed, both would have dropped dead.

"Are you really that naive? Our fleet did nothing! They attacked without any reason. They destroyed Helakar and Hopther."

Lesur didn't say anything. He just turned around and left the Thorts office.

Kelesh on the other side let his head drop.

"Why did I even put him into his office?" he wondered out loud.

"Because he is one of the best, when it comes down to financial management. Everyone better than him is in one of the larger companies."

As much as Kelesh hated it, the voice, belonging to Thorta, was right. He sighed and walked to the large window front of his office, looking over the Red Palace. It was one of the best views on the planet and he could even see the space port far outside the city.

At the moment one of the massive twenty Mton freighter was lifting off, preparing to run for one of the other planets or stations.

"Anything new?"

"Well," Thorta said," I just have received a new Jump Beacon signal. Sol beacon has just come online."

Kelesh smiled a little.

"I wonder how the Earthers are going to take our little surprise?"

"I think they are going to be overjoyed. Even if they just get one of our surplus Jump Gates together with the ship yards."

Keles nodded. The Admirals had worked hard on him to allow the movement of the old Gol Jump Gate, exchanged with a new version three years ago, to Earth. It allowed them to send even the small ships without Jump Drive to Earth, should the planet need Ferron help.

"Okay than, notify the Earth fleet that the Jump Beacon is online."

"Already done."

Kelesh chuckled a little. The Jump Beacon would reduce the time of Jump Space travel from nearly two weeks of navigational travel, down to about an hour beacon travel.

"What of the Production of Slipstream Drive and Quantum Shields?"

"The production facilities on Reyan have been modified and should be coming online as we speak. But I fear that we can only use a percent of the produced drives and shields."

Kelesh nodded and shrugged.

"I think we should be used to something like that by now. We have similar production failures with the transmitters."

The Transmitters were devices that could teleport a being over interplanetary distances and very common for travel over planetary and interplanetary distances. But there were a few problems. No Ferron scientist or engineer was able to understand how they worked. As such it was impossible to find production faults or even repair them. It was also impossible to scale them up and transport more than four people. So only about a percent of all produced transmitters really worked, and even than only for about two years until they failed. So much for one of the Ancients technologies.

"When do you think that we get the first production models?"

"In about three weeks, maybe four and than we can only outfit or or two ships with them. Khélar-Hét Transmitters is only willing to divert so much of their industrial capacity for this project. And they are the only company that had the right facilities to build drives and shields."

Kelesh sighed again. Khélar-Hét Transmitters was the only company really able to build these technologies, as they had the patent on the technologies needed to build transmitters. Sure there were other companies that produced transmitters, but they didn't build as much as Khélar-Hét.

"Can't we give them some incentives for increase their capacities to build drives and shields?"

"I think we can, but you need to talk to Lesur again. But even than they need several month of construction for new production facilities."

Kelesh frowned. Again he wondered why Lesur was such an idiot over the Doranian Problem.

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Gol, the 14th planet of Wega. A massive planet of about 434,000 kilometers diameter and a strange mix of gas giant and silicon core wolds. Gol had an atmosphere consisting of Methane and Ammonia, while the surface gravity was crushing 916 times Earth normal.

But even in this environment life was existing in one of its many forms, energetic beings that were living of the energy of the massive storms of Gol.

The 'Ghosts of Gol' weren't the only thing that was to be found on the planet, as the Ferrons had found large deposits of Quantum 40 or CV Embinium as its was known throughout the galaxy. In fact, through no one knew it, it was the largest deposit of this very precious mineral in its best quality in the galaxy.

And the Ferrons were already using it. Despite the extremely high gravity of the hybrid planet, the Ferrons were mining the Quantum 40/CV Embinium, but not without installing the largest ever build gravity neutralizers on the surface. But even than only special machines were able to scrape the material from the extremely dense surface.

Nonetheless the mining operation was very profitable, as the material could be used for Transmitters and several other applications, such as Jump Drives and Jump Gates.

On the moon Rustoner, the largest of Gols more than a hundred natural satellites, the Ferrons had found a habitable earth like environment and build a small settlement to supply the Gol mining operation as well as the other more classical mining operations on Gols numerous moons.

Freighters left Aiching, the capital of Rustoner in regular intervals, while a small fleet detachment tried to get a grip on the pirate problem that plagued Gol and its moons. But that was just a small problem compared to a larger problem that came to Gol.

Space flashed white just a few ten thousand kilometers distant to Rustoner as a complete Doranian Invasion Fleet dropped from Slipstream. It was more than five times the size of the Fleet that was nearly completely destroyed during the Second Battle for Earth. More than 250 Cruisers, 50 Dreadnoughts and thirty Troop Transporters appeared in Gols gravitational system.

The commander of the Invasion Fleet followed the normal train of thought for a Doranian, as well as the common strategical planning. The sensors of this ship had found the inhabited moon, with an environment that was not unlike of that of the Homeworld, and a pitiful defense. He could kill two Nergals with one swipe.

The fleet over Rustoner consisted only of a three frigates, a few Corvettes and about a dozen gunboats as well as two armed space stations. Two of the frigates had just arrived at Rustoner through the moons Jump Gate.

The Doranian fleet came down onto the unsuspecting defense fleet like a horde of piranhas came down on a bleeding animal. They didn't stop at the ships and the two stations, but also destroyed the Jump Gate, its explosion taking three Cruiser with it, as they underestimated the force of the explosion.

The regional government of Rustoner could just send a single message over the lunar tachyon transmitter array before several orbital strikes rained down on the moon, destroying the entire communication infrastructure. All that was left to the lunar population were a few Transmitters, but even those couldn't be used to travel to one of the other planets or relay messages, as the destruction of the Jump Gate had damaged them, reducing their range to the distances inside the Gol gravitational system.

As ten of the Troop Transports dive into the atmosphere of Rustoner, most of the Ferrons knowing about it couldn't think of what was going to happen.

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"We lost contact to Gol," Admiral Kertal said over the holographic com line." The Jump Gate is offline and the last communique we got from Rustoner before we lost contact was that the moon was attacked by an unknown force. I'd take a guess and say that the Doranians are here."

Tenchi frowned. That was bad. Through they were later than he had anticipated, they were still there, in greater numbers too most likely.

"We have to expect that the Jump Gate was destroyed," D added." That limits the forces we can get into play. And we need to scout them out before we can strike anyway."

"We still need to strike as fast a possible. They can't be allowed to fortify Rustoner. And we need the Quantum 40 we mine on Gol."

Kertal looked sowhat pained as hew said that.

"There are more than a thousand people on Gol's surface. And they need the monthly supply runs. Kalumvat Minung, the carrier of the mine, just called when they lost contact with their office on Rustoner. We can't tell the miner about the attack as Gol itself allows no FTL communication to the surface only pin point high energy transmissions from a stationary directly over the mine. Kalumvat placed a satellite there, but it only has or had a short range FTL link to the long range transmitter on Rustoner. And the miners only have enough supplies for the next three month, six if they ration them."

Tenchi nodded, while his mind was working. He was maybe the only one who had actual real experience with ship to ship combat, especially against an enemy of unknown numbers. Not that he didn't respect the Ferron Navy, but most of their job was fighting pirates and spaceborn criminality. The last real fights the Navy had fought were about five hundred years ago, when Rofus and Pigell had been independent, through led by dictators. And the battle of Ferrol two days ago was more of a slaughter, as they hadn't been as prepared as they were now.

Slowly a plan began to form in Tenchi's mind.

"The best would be a probing and diversion attack on the Doranians at Rustoner. A Task Force of ships, not the most powerful ones, drop from Jump Space, attack the Doranians, destroy as many as they can before jumping back to Jump Space and return here. And while they are attacking, another ship can send a message to the mine on Gol."

D smiled while Kertal looked thoughtful.

"I would think that the _Red_ _Palace_, _Dark_ _Knight_, _Alabama_ and _Potempkin_ would remain her in that case."

Tenchi nodded.

"What ship should transmit the message?"

"I was thinking the _Arcadia_," Tenchi said." She could use her Slipstream Drive to get to the satellite."

Kertal nodded.

"I think we could destroy a good number of them with missiles and the main weapons."

"Not to mention with the Bonehead Manouver."

Kertal blinked and than raised an eyebrow.

"Bonehead Manouver?"

Tenchi sighed.

"A technique Earth Force was on the receiving end too many times during the Earth-Minbari War. The technique is that you simply open a jump point inside the enemy formation, close to enemy ships. The Jump Point rips apart all vessels close to the Jump Point."

Kertal grinned.

"I like the sound of that."

"We should try to get those Jump Points to open close to any Doranian Dreadnoughts, that way we can scratch them from our list."

Again Kertal nodded.

"Sounds reasonable We should also give the ships as many missiles as we can. If needed we bolt them to the hulls."

D suddenly had a grin on her face.

"Well, in that case Admiral," sh said," let me introduce a concept called Missile Pod. Very useful for dealing out vase amounts of missiles at a short time at the same time."

Again Kertal raised an eyebrow.

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Jump space was a very interesting medium. It was another layer of reality and crossing a distance in it meant that you crossed a larger distance translated to normal space. You also could accelerate at higher speeds than in normal space. The draw backs were the constant gravitic sheers that went through jump space forcing to change course constantly. There was also no way of knowing where you were compared to normal space. Only very advanced technologies wee able to scan normal space from jump space. A network of beacons were a good way of navigating in jump space, but those could only maintain so many nodes and routes.

The Jump Gate network, complete with beacons in jump space of the Ferrons was relatively small, just linking the different planets in the Vega system and now Earth too. However Earth didn't have a Jump Gate yet, and the planet of Gol hadn't one anymore.

Jump space blossomed as the jump points appeared in front of the small forward attack fleet of the two Expeditionary Fleets of Earth and Ferrol. A pair of Monsoons, a Lupo and three Ferron Hyperions entered the five jump points generated by the larger ships and shot out into normal space, directly into the largest concentration of Doranian ships.

Powerful scanners lanced out from _HMS Fearless_, its fire control system being the most powerful and most effective of the fleet. The first it picked up was debris. About thirteen ships had been destroyed by the jump points, but not even the _Fearless_' sensors were unable to identify the ships.

Missiles, programmed to search their own targets were fired, filling space between the probing fleet and the Doranian ships. Turrets of the ships turned as they acquired their targets and fired. The single Lupo turned about, targeting a Dreadnought with its spinal laser and fired, the fire sequence punching meter thick holes right through the entire ship and the ship behind it, as both hadn't activated their shields yet.

The two Monsoons acted as a pair, aligning at their target before firing their weapons a the same target. The Ferrons Hyperions used the same principle, just that they aligned their weapon turrets in a way that the entire energy coming from their weapons slammed into the same point of the hull or the now activated shields at the same time.

By now the first missiles had reached their targets, slamming into hasty activated shields, detonating with much higher yields than the bombs on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Some shields collapsed under the strain, others held.

The last missiles found their targets and detonated as five more Jump Points opened in front of the seven ships. The accelerated into the Jump Points and disappeared from normal space as fast as they had entered it, leaving behind about thirty destroyed Cruisers and seven Dreadnoughts.

On the other side of Gol, _Arcadia_ stopped transmitting and accelerated away from a lone satellite before jumping into slipstream, speeding back towards Ferrol.

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"... just announced that Lakehurst will be once again home to giant ships. This time it won't be air ships like in the 30s of the last century, but space ships of the new century. The large airfields formally build to land airships, they will now be used to land space ships..."

zap

"... Mars Society announced that they will give the order to build the first colony vessel for Mars to Scaled Composits, the company that has already build the Voyager, a planet that rounded the Earth without refueling. Of cause the order to build the _Mayflower_, as the ship will be called, the plans for _Spaceship_ _One_ is going to be put on ice..."

zap

"... has ordered the relocation of several Orion ASW planes to Lumut in Malaysia as reaction to the destruction of three ships of the Royal Australian Navy..."

zap

"... successfully took control over Kandahar. This is seen as starting point of the War on Terror..."

zap

"... discosured successful diplomatic talks with an alien government for the last two days. According to the White House ex-US President Jimmy Carter was the..."


	24. Chapter 24

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 23

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Ryoko literally floated in one of the many still empty rooms close to Control Room of the Earth Space Defense Center inside of Shabazza.

She leaned back into the air. This tree was different from all the Space Trees she knew about, had been aboard or the like. Jurian Treeships were build from the bark of the Jurian Royal Trees and controlled by a Space Tree, while the room she was in had grown inside a living, breathing, intelligent being. Other than the Jurian Treeships, the wood of room around her seemed to radiate life. It had a calming effect, not only on her, but on just about everyone she had meet in the past two days.

The debriefing about the mock-up battle had ended a few moment earlier and she had needed some time for herself. Too many things had happened in the last weeks.

First Tenchi had reappeared as a changed man. A military man. He was much harder than he used to be, more aggressive, more protective to what was his. Or what he cared for. What he had done showed that very good. For the moment she somehow knew that Earth had very high on his list of priorities. If there would be any problem, he would choose Earth over anything else.

When she looked at him, she could see a bit of herself. She loved him, but she knew that she couldn't act like she had before and give him space. If she didn't, he could withdraw from her. But now she was ready to do just that, give him some breathing space.

Than Earth and the changes it went through. The Doranian 'First Impact', as the media had started to call the bombardment, had woke Earth. As she thought about that a quote came to her head.

'I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.'

Earth was far from being a sleeping giant through, but she remembered the story about David against Goliath. And Earth was a very resourceful David. One who knew how to make friends and allies. The newly discovered Ferrons and the Mutual Defense Treatry proved that. Not even knowing about another race for a few days and the humans had already good diplomatic relations with them.

Than her mother. Ryoko may not really confess it, but she loved her mother, but what child didn't? In the last years she had never seed her mother so deep in her chosen element than ever before. She was happier than ever before.

Ayeka on the other side was more and more the spoiled princess. No one could really explain what happened to her and it went so far that Sasami was scared when Ayeka was close, even if she was able to hide it very good. Her change was creepy.

Ryoko swallowed as memories came up in her. Her behavior was showing the same signs as that of Kagato.

She shook her head clear of the memories and petted Ryo-Ohki, who was sitting on the ground, happily munching on a carrot. The Vogon Poetry induced shock had been a little more serve than even Washuu had thought, but Ryo-Ohki was back up again.

Than she looked at the unopened letter that laid next to the cabbit. Admiral Jackson had given it to her after the debriefing, smiling at her. She hadn't opened it yet as she had needed to think of something else first.

She took the letter and opened the envelope. Slowly she fished a sheet of paper from it and folded it open. She swallowed a little as she looked at the Seal of the White House on the paper. She may not be one to simply respect statesmen, but Jack Ryan was an exception after her visit in Camp David.

Slowly she read the letter. She stopped, blinked and read it again. Than she looked at Ryo-Ohki.

"I don't really know what to think of this," she said into her partners direction.

Ryo-Ohki stopped munching on the carrot and looked up at Ryoko. She miahed once and Ryoko could feel her partners support on this.

Ryoko looked back at the letter and smiled a little.

"It seems we finally have a place to call home."

Slowly she folded the letter, offering her citizenship of the United States, and put it back into the envelope, while the cabbit had finished the carrot and floated on top of her head.

"I wonder if there are any strings attached?" she wondered as she left the room, the cabbit sitting on her head.

"Slipstream Events," the voice of Shabazza called out in the now empty room, like in so many empty rooms inside of him." Emergancy stations, this is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill."

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"Well... shit..."

Commander Jack Sheridan, commander of the _USS_ _Firefinder_, glanced at the holographic display floating in the center of Command & Control of the AEGIS Monsoon. C&C looked very much like the cinematic Control Center of NORAD and channeled all data from the powerful AEGIS sensory systems of the ship.

Other than its gunship sisters, _Firefinder_ wasn't very heavily armed and lacked the downsized GOD Particle Cannon of the gunship. The two fixed arc Light Pulse cannons and sixteen Plasma Gatling cannons were not very good for anything than Point Defense and with the low number of ships available _Firefinder_ had to stay back in battle and just act as sensory platform.

"We got two hundred fifty Doranian Cruisers, fifty Dreadnoughts and thirty unknown vessels," he heard one of the computer jockeys say.

"A full invasion force," Sheridan said with dread." And all we can do is sit here and watch the fight."

He couldn't do much more without the main weapon of the gunboat to punch at least through the shields of the Cruisers.

"TacNet established. GOD satellites are online as are the Missile Pods."

Sheridan leaned forward, eyes never leaving the hologram as he noted that Home Guard, as just about everyone had started to call the fleet defending Earth. A huge number of red contacts against a small number of blue contacts, wonderful.

"Defense Center gave Engagement Order."

Sheridan nodded absently as he saw the first red contacts blinking and than disappear.

The GOD satellites out in space were basically the same as the ones in orbit around another Earth in another universe. Designed for fast alignment, high rate of fire (compared to similar sized and similar powerful weapons) and high weapons power, any GOD satellite was more than a match for the Doranian ships and the shields worked for the sats protecting it better than their rather flimsy armor not much more than a simple hull protecting the reactor and the weapons from space borne debris.

At five shots per minute, five Doranian Cruisers were destroyed, the computer guidance of the satellites hitting with pin point accuracy.

Sheridan watched as about sixty missiles streaked out from the two GOD satellites. It was _Firefinder_ and _Maginot_ who had the mission to make sure that those missiles found their targets. There was just one problem in that. The missiles had only low yields and they were the only ones the satellites would fire as they hadn't be fully armed yet.

Laser beams streaked out from the AEGIS Monsoon, transmitting data packages to the computers of the missiles.

"_St_. _Petersburg_ and _Daring_ announce direct hits and that they lost part of their shields."

Sheridan winced, but concentrated on the holo display. The Doranians were outnumbering Home Guard, and even if they had a lesser advanced technology, quantity was a quality of its own.

"We got Breakers!" he said after a while.

_Daring_ and _St. Petersburg_ were breaking of towards Shabazza, the GODs, the Ancients and the Monsoons being the only ships holding the line. That allowed Doranian ships to break through. About twenty of them, fifteen of the unknown ships and five Cruisers making best speed towards Earth and the atmosphere.

As the unknown ships slowed down and entered the upper atmosphere, with the Cruiser breaking off to take on the GODs directly, it made click for Sheridan.

"Landing ships," he said with a feeling of dread.

The landing ships had made it deep into Earth's atmosphere as Doranian ships suddenly started to blow up in scores and a single new blue contact appeared on the holo display.

"Ryo-Ohki," Sheridan said with a little relief, while several of the crew started to cheer.

"Sorry for the wait," Ryoko was to be heard over TacNet." But I think Ryo-Ohki needs to put on a diet."

Ryoko's quip at her partner was followed by a whining meow.

Sheridan smiled slightly, but than remembered the landing ships.

"Get me a display on the landing ships in the atmosphere."

The display changed from he now one sided carnage between Ryo-Ohki and the Doranians to a view of Earth. Fifteen red dots made their way throughout the globe, some touching down in Africa, some in Sibiria, some in South America, Brasil Sheridan noted, and the West Coast.

"LA, damnit."

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"There goes the neighborhood."

Twin F-22 streaked over the two massive landing ships, their missiles having impacted into the two Doranian ships without much effect.

"Bad enough that they hit LA two weeks ago. Now they try to do the rest..."

Captain Marvin 'Marv' Cores frowned. The base commander of Edwards had been very fast to order his unit into the air as soon as NORAD had confirmed that five of the Doranian landing ships were heading for LA. Normally he and the rest of the 27th Fighter Squadron, "The Fighting Eagles", would be on their way towards Japan as reinforcements in case the Chinese situation would escalate. The Doranian attack had them touching down in Edwards and now on active duty.

Marv his wingman and two other F-22 had unloaded their entire load of Sparrows, Sidewinders and AMRAAMs into the two landing ships, but without any effect.

"I feel like I'm in ID4," Marv could hear his wingman complain.

Marv looked over to the two massive seashell like ships of the Doranians, even the landing ships looked like they belonged into the damned movie.

"At least they are not over Downtown LA."

There was a snort over the radio.

"Maybe because they already took care of Downtown LA two weeks ago."

There was silence as they passed the two ships again.

"They're firing!" he heard a scream and pulled his plane into a climb.

As nothing hit him, his wingman or the other two F-22, he glanced back out of the cockpit and swallowed. The fire was not aimed at him, but at the ground.

"They are leveling Beverly Hills."

Again there was a silence.

"I think that Playboy Mansion is somewhere in that area."

"Bye Bye, Playboy."

"I hope they get that High School from 90210."

Marv ignored the chatter.

"Edwards Actual, this is Eagle-Ten," he spoke over TacNet," We have a drop at Wilshire and Santa Monica. Two ships."

"Roger that, Eagle-Ten. Continue to observe. It seems that the other three are dropping at South Central LA."

"Affirmative."

"South Central LA? I wonder how far they make it with the number of gangs down there..."

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Commander Anseal hit the bulkhead next to the massive air lock doors of the landing ship, the servo assisted fist putting a light dent into it. He didn't like the news he had gotten from the cockpit of the ship. They had lost complete contact with the main fleet and half of the other landing ships. And no one really knew what had happened.

He glared over to his sub-commanders. He would do what he was ordered to do. He glanced at the informations he had gotten from his superiors. It were GP data over the common technological advanceds of the race on this planet. He didn't know, nor did he care, where his commanding officers had gotten the information.

But he was thankful for every little bit of information he had gotten. He knew that this race was below Quantum 0 level and that the ships they had most likely were GU loans or something along those lines. There was no way that they could be able to build these ships their selves over the last twelve Doranian days.

It would be useless. This planet was underdeveloped and while it had many pray there wasn't going to be much resistance. Not to the much more advanced weapons of his troops. And he knew that most races wouldn't sue their orbital weapons against their own kind, even if they could hit their enemy that way.

This planet would become a new hunting ground for the Protectorate and the inhabitants slaves or pray.

He barked out his orders. The best would be to rapidly secure this city and than keep it until the next invasion fleet came. Up in the cockpit of the ship he knew that the crew was informing Keravok Station about the unsuspected loss of the invasion fleet.

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"I'm getting to old for this shit."

Slowly he turned and looked into the broad smile of his partner.

"Oh no..."

He knew that smile. He knew that very well. He had seen it during the mess with McAllister, the South Africans, Travis and the Triad smugglers.

"I really pitty da fools," he heard his partner say.

It was worse than he thought as he heard his partner quoting Mr. T. And he wasn't even black...

And where the hell had he gotten a P-90?

"Riggs, we need to talk..."

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He swallowed again as he looked up into the sky and at these massive shell like ships that had landed not to far away in and around Municipal Park. He had seen the massive ships firing their weapons at the ground, leveling everything around them to get a better landing place. And if the large fireballs were any indication, they had blown up the two gas stations near the park.

He shook his head clear and looked over to his brother.

"What are you doing?"

His brother glared at him before inserting a new magazine into his Uzi, checking the remaining magazines and a box of ammunition. He remembered that ammo from a few years back.

"Copkillers?"

He looked back at the looming ships.

"You can't..."

Again his brother glared at him before handing him a Beretta.

"Get the others. We're going to chase those pussies from our city."

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"Volgograd? You said they would land close to Tomsk."

To say that President Grushavoy was furious would have been an understatement. Four Doranian landing ships had entered the atmosphere over Siberia and for a few moments it had looked like they wanted to make their drop there. But they chose to go to Volgograd.

The city that used to be Stalingrad was one of the cities hit by a kinetic impact and a good number of the civilian population had left to cities close to Volgograd.

Grushavoy glared at his generals.

"I want that invasion force erased from the surface of this planet. I won't allow that anyone save for Russians will ever have that city."

He glared out of the window and into the direction of Reutov. Volgograd had been the place where his father had died during the Great War to force the Germans to surrender. And he knew that everyone in the room shared his thoughts.

"I permit the use of all weapons in our arsenals save for nuclear warheads. I want those damned cat dead."

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Somewhere deep in the plains of Siberia a phone call was answered and set all into motion. In large hangars of the unnamed military base two Tu-160 supersonic bombers were fueled. Four large circular containers were pulled from storage and loaded into the two bombers.

About thirty minutes later the two bombers were in the air and speed towards Volgograd. In twelve kilometers altitude they accelerated to Mach 2 and reached the air space over Volgograd, the four massive landing ships below.

The two Blackjacks slowed down and their bomb bays opened. The four massive cylinders dropped from the planes, small parachutes slowing down their descent into the darkness below, while the bombers turned around and speed towards their base.

In the last stage of their descent, valves opened and gas streamed out of the cylinders on their way down, flooding the area between and around the massive landing ships. The gas moved through the shields of the massive shell like ships filling the shield domes with even greater concentration than the surrounding air.

Than the cylinders touched the ground between more than twelve thousand confused Doranian soldiers. While the gas continued to stream out of the valves Doranians moved closer to the cylinders, trying to find out what they were. They didn't get that far.

Small charges inside the cylinders detonated, igniting the dangerous fuel-air mixture that surrounded the landing ships.

In the approaching Hind assault helicopters of the Russian Army, troopers saw the massive fireball raising over the Volga, illuminating the city around the landing ships, massive shadows against the detonations of the Fuel-Air explosives.

At least in Russia, the Doranian invasion was the shortest invasion ever.


	25. Chapter 25

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 24

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Air space above LA was getting crowded. More than ever. Edwards and Nellis had launched their entire complements of RQ-1 Predator, RQ-9 Predator B and RQ-4 Global Hawk drones. Now about thirty drones circled over Los Angeles at different altitudes, covering the entire city.

News helicopters were broadcasting live from the events letting CNN, Fox and a multitude of different news networks work for the best news coverage. Of cause the few Police helicopters left tried to prevent the news from getting the best shots and save their lives, but to no avail.

Much higher above this all _USS_ _Firefinder_ had all its sensors directed at the city of LA, as there wasn't a single reconnaissance satellite over the city or would be for the next few hours. The optical sensors, two six meter and four two meter mirrors with attached multiple sensors were more sensitive anyway.

So the US military had three sources for information. Drones, orbital reconnaissance and the news.

Lieutenant General Benjamin Kowalksi, US Army, stared at the number of plasma displays and monitors in front of him. Next to him Brigadier General Sam Arnolds, US Air Force, and Brigadier General Mark Towers, US Marine Corps, were doing the same. The three of them were standing in one of the 'War Rooms' in the Pentagon where the Los Angeles Situation was to be resolved.

"I don't think that I even had this much information..." Kowalski noted dryly." I don't know whether or not its too much."

"And I never imagined to see Black and Latino gangs working together," Towers said as he looked at the monitor that was showing the news coverage from Fox.

The two other generals turned their heads to see several vans, trucks and cars with Latinos and black people waving their weapons while driving towards an area where the Doranians had made on of the larger win of land since their landing an hour ago.

"A pity that we can't drop one or two MOABs or FAEs like the Russians did," Arnolds noted, causing the other two to nod sagely.

"Sirs, we got the notice that the A-10 of the 57th Wing has entered LA air space."

The three Generals turned their heads towards the main screen. Arnolds had only ordered 12 Warthogs to LA as no one really know how the Doranians would react to them. And they would find out how effective different munitions were. The A-10 were armed with a number of different load outs, Cluster Bombs, Dump Bombs, Laser Guided Bombs, Hydras, the whole nine yards. And of cause they still had their GAU-8 gatlings.

"We should get them to South Central," Towers said." That way we can weaken the Doranians until the Marines arrive there."

"Beverly Hills would be better," Kowalski noted." Because the Marines will reach South Central earlier and we can't allow the Doranians to get a better foothold in Beverly Hills."

Arnolds looked at the screen for a moment and than nodded.

"Besides the gangs are going to be a problem for the Doranians in South Central," he said after a moment." Beverly Hills it is."

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SWAT Sergeant Colin Meirs leaned at the edge of one of the skyscapters at West Olympic and Century Park. He had a great view from the place he laid on the roof of the building to the two one hundred meter high shell like landing ships of the Doranians.

He wasn't the only one on the roof. About half of SWATs snipers were laying on the roofs of several other buildings.

"We get visitors," he heard one of the others say and at the same moment he could hear several low pitched noises coming from South.

He turned around and stopped after a moment as two A-10 flew in low over the roof and over his head, maybe ten meters above him. Without thinking of anything he turned back around and was how the A-10 headed towards the troop gatherings of the Doranians.

"Oh shit," he cursed as he saw how the two Warthogs dropped several green colored cylinders and than pulled up.

He could see how the cylinders fell a few meters before bursting open to unload their deadly payload. Meirs swallowed as he looked how hundreds of grenade sized bomblets rained down on the Doranians and detonated over and between the about thousand Doranians.

Even from his spot he could hear how the bomblets blew up, sounding like those cracker lines during Chinese New Year in China Town. Only that those 'crackers' blew up just about everything in their surroundings.

Again he swallowed as he glared at the A-10 and than laid back down to glance through the scope of his rifle. He only looked through the scope for a moment, but it was enough to let him throw up.

He never noticed how the next A-10 dove towards the Doranians and how four of them were shot down by weapons fire from the ground. The heavy plasma weapons were cutting straight through the Warthogs heavy armor, where the medium weapons had the effect of rather normal anti-air fire and light fire barley scorched the paint.

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Arnolds shook his head and sighed.

"I think we can scratch the A-10 from the list."

The three generals had watched in real time how effective Cluster bombs were, but than they had also seen that the Doranians were learning quite fast. Too fast for the generals.

Arnolds looked at one of the operators.

"How long until we can expect the AC-130 of the 16th over LA?"

The operator looked at his screen for a moment before answering.

"About six hours. They need to land at Edwards for refueling first."

"Until than the Doranians have spread through a good amount of the city."

"They are already starting an advance towards each other," Towers noted." In a straight line from the looks of it."

"Sirs, the first Marine units are advancing towards South Gate."

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Slowly the HMMWV and LAV-25 of the Marine 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion and about twenty Abrams and Bradleys of the Marine 1st Tank Battalion advanced towards Municipal Park, the landing area of three Doranian ships.

Route 710 had been virtually empty, with not even someone fleeing the city. Not surprising as everyone who had wanted to flee had done so in the two weeks since first impact and so the Marines had taken the freeway to move towards their target area a first rapid response force.

The marines had split up in three groups. One advancing from southeast along Salt Lake Avenue, one moving north to later advance along Maywood Avenue and a third moving west to advance along East Florance Avenue.

However, the Marines weren't the only one preparing to engage the Doranians.

"We don't have time for this shit."

Enrico Hernandez growled as he punched into the wall next to his younger brothers head.

"Either you grab that damned gun or you are going to die," he said." This Kung Fu shit isn't going to save your ass."

"It's Kenpo," his brother said quietly getting himself a long hard glare.

"I don't care. But I care, if those aliens blow the shit out of you."

Enrico couldn't really imagine how his brother was so much unlike everyone else in the family. Enrico was the leader of a gang and his brother hadn't anything better to do than becoming one of the largest nerds he knew.

"This isn't one of those Anima of yours."

"Its anime," another voice said from behind and Enrico turned around to see a fully armed Marine standing in the door.

The Marine was a latino and grinned at Enrico.

"Hello, little brother," he said and looked at the other people in the room, members of Enricos gang." Still playing gangsta?"

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Anseal growled low. The natives were getting restless. They had actually managed to destroy a company in the northern beachhead with an unknown weapon, delivered by a pair of flyers. However, even with the loss of a company of a thousand warriors, he still had five thousand in the northern beachhead and nine thousand here in the southern beachhead.

But he was glad about the initiative of Sub-Commander Derdal. He had ordered his men to fire at any other flyer that came and destroyed ten before they could drop their weapons on the other companies.

Anseal turned to another Sub-Commander prepared to give him orders to reinforce the southern perimeter of the southern beachhead, but he didn't come as far as the unprotected head of the Sub-Commander suddenly burst into a cloud of red-greenish blood and gore.

For a moment Anseal stared as the now headless body fell down to the ground before diving behind the next cover. He hadn't survived as warrior as long as he had while being stupid. While he didn't really understand what just happened, he suddenly knew that the natives could do the same to him or any of the other warriors.

With a quick movement he pressed a button on his right neck and the memory metal of his powered armor reacted, unfolding the helmet of his suit. Normally it was a sign of weakness if someone activated their helmets while not being in vacuum or poisonous atmosphere, but in this case it was important that his troops had someone to lead them.

"Activate your helmets," he growled into the receiver of his radio." This in an order."

It was only a few moments later that he heard of more death warriors that had fallen in the same way as the Sub-Commander.

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Gunny Smith cursed. Here he had had that cat nicely aligned for the next head shot and than the beast had ducked behind a cover after staring at his last kill for a moment. All had been perfectly aligned and it should have been a perfect shot.

"Damned cats," he grumbled.

"One o'clock," his spotter suddenly said." You see what I see? Below the air lock."

Smith glanced back through his scope and moved his rifle slightly. He could see several of the Doranians and how they moved their hands to touch their necks. Something akin to helmets unfolded to protect their heads.

"Damn it," he muttered.

"That material can't be very thick. Maybe you can get through?"

Smith shrugged and the cross hairs came to rest on the helmet of one Doranian. He stopped breathing, aligned the rifle a little and pressed the trigger. He released his breath as he saw how a hole appeared in the helmet and the Doranian collapsed.

"Seems your right," he said after a moment.

"Yeah, but we need to go."

Smith looked up and down the street where a Doranian patrol came into their direction.

"Damnit."

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Delenn couldn't help but look at the large plasma screen that hung in the large hall of the Minbari Embassy in Geneva.

"... we have information that the Doranian invasion force in Volgograd, the former Stalingrad, was anihiliated by the Russian use of FAEs, Fuel-Air Explosives. With that the Doranians are the second invasion force to get a bloody nose in the same city after the Nazi defeat in February 1943, fifty years ago."

Next to her Neroon crossed his arms.

"Impressive," he said after a moment, as the news host explained what a FAE was." As primitive as these humans are, they have some impressive devices. I would have destroyed all beachheads with orbital strikes."

Delenn looked at Neroon for a moment.

"The humans are concerned about the normal people living in those cities."

Nerron snorted and they looked at the plasma screen again.

"...no news from the other Doranian beachheads at Sao Paolo and Pretoria as the Brasilian and South African governments have stopped any communication from these areas. The Los Angeles situation however has stabilized after the first forward units of the US Marine Corps have arrived and prepare to attack the Doranian beachhead in South LA. We are now talking to Debbie Matenopoulos in South LA. Debbie?"

The scene on the plasma screen changed showing a street in LA, in the background the shell like landing ships of the Doranians could be seen. Just behind the blonde woman in the center, Delenn and Neroon could see Marines getting ready, while an Abrams and several LAV-25 were slowly moving down the street.

"Than you Nick," the woman said." I'm standing here at Salt Lake Avenue and behind me you can see the massive hulks of the Doranian landing ships...

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"... have set up several position with mortars. Later today, Colonel John Mills, the commander of the Marine Fast Response commando, awaits the arrival of several pieces of missile artillery..."

Sairyo continued to blink as he glanced at the holographic display that hung in the center of the Masaki Shrine. Next to him Katsuhito sighed.

The minute CNN had broadcasted the news of the defeat of the Doranians in Volgograd, he could see the irony in that one, he had known that every nation on Earth was more than capable of destroying any Doranian beachhead. Especially when the Doranians lacked air and space superiority.

"I am close to feeling pitty for the Doranians," he said, shaking the still wounded Sairyo from his blinking stupor.

His aide glanced at him again blinking, but only once this time.

"Huh? Uhm... Why?"

Katsuhito raised an eyebrow.

"First, they are fighting against US Marines. They are one of the best military units on Earth and the one with the best morale. Second, the Doranians are going to learn that mankind doesn't play by the rules."

Again Sairyo blinked.

"What?"

Katsuhito just smiled.

"I think you will see."

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The Sergeant nodded and slowly the other mortar crews nodded in return. At nearly the same moment, fifteen 81mm mortar rounds slid out of the loaders hands and into the long barrels of the fifteen M252 mortars.

Fifteen times small propel charges were ignited in the lower end of the barrels and the rounds shot out of the barrels towards their one mile distant targets.

Not even a second after the first rounds slid into the barrels the next slid in. Three motar rounds were in the air before the first pummeled down upon the unsuspecting Doranian warriors with a sharp whistle.

High explosive rounds impacted into troop gatherings, light hover vehicles and supply crates.

"Go, go, go!"

The scream came from several throats of Marines as the Abrams, Bradleys, HMMWVs and LAV-25 began to move towards the Doranian landing ships. Moving along Salt Lake, Maywood and East Florance Avenues they reached the panicked Doranians and began their work.

The M1A2 Abrams began firing their heavy 120 mm cannons into the unprotected lower part of the ships, as the shields only covered the top of the ships. Armor piercing and High Explosive rounds slammed into and through the only reinforced hulls exposing the inner workings of the ships to the human tanks. The tank commanders of thew M1A2 turned their M2 towards the Doranians firing the heavy machine guns, trying to down as many of the alien invaders as they could.

Marines jumped out of Bradleys and HMMWVs while the weapons of both Bradleys and LAV-25 opened up on the invaders.

But the humans luck wasn't lasting. While the medium armored light infantry of the Doranians fell to the armor piercing 25mm chain guns and M2s, the heavy infantry, clothed in powered armor, didn't. The panic of the Doranians made space for determination as they returned fire.

Weapons that had reduced the surrounding buildings into rubble, opened fire at the human ground troops, eating through the heavy composite armor of the tanks, while light and heavy infantry opened fire at the Marines that had entered the fray on foot.

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"Retreat," Corporal Higgs heard and didn't wait long.

As fast as he could he ran towards one of the few still standing houses close to the Doranian beachhead. Even if he was a Marine, he was horrified. It all had begun so good, now the Doranians had destroyed all Abrams with their ship based weapons, even if said Abrams had ripped deep gashed into the ships themselves.

And he had seen how the Doranians fought, like berserkers they had jumped at the Marines, their fully body armor more often than not repelling the fire of M16, M4 and MP5. He had seen how most of the fallen Marines had either been dismembered when the felines had closed in on close quarters range, their superior strength, speed and agility clearly winning in this, as they used their claws, natural close quarters weapons.

He jumped through one of the destroyed windows and ran into one of the next rooms before sinking down to the ground. After a moment, he heard a low thumb next to him, seeing how a Marine fell to the ground next to him, a Gunnery Sergeant.

"You okay, Gunny," he asked and came up to look after the other Marine.

"Do I look like I'm okay?" the Sergeant said and turned to face Higgs.

Higgs went green as he saw that the right arm of the Sergeant had been removed from the shoulder, the wound cauterized.

"Shit," he swore." Can you walk?"

"Sowhat," the Gunny said." I think I'm in shock. I really need a medic."


	26. Chapter 26

Back Home – Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 25 (parts of this chapter were written by Santtu of the Anime Addventure)

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Murphy's law is funny thing. It usually strikes when you really don't want it to happen.

In battle things usually don't go like you want them to go. Those poor Marines who were beaten back and now were running for their lives, trying to reach rally point where the rest of the forces were waiting would have agree, if they had time to think of something else than surviving.

But in battle, one should always remember that Murphy's law work both ways. That is a fact the Doranians were going to feel very soon.

Let's forget all the Doranian soldiers running towards all those mortars, machine guns, few tanks, rocket launchers, etc. and talk little about landing ships.

Landing ships. Because of their higher rate of destruction, some of the usual luxuries used in combat ships, were taken from the design to manufacture them faster. This included the inner air purify systems which recycle old air without need of plants, a system that is not really needed when a ship just moves troops from point A to point B.

Also to save space, all storages were crammed together as much as possible. This includes oxygen tanks, so soldiers could fight in vacuum and poisoned areas, plasma gun munition, plasma generators and explosives.

Why is this so important? Because your average chain reaction likes to work with Murphy's law. While the Doranian advance was stopped by heavy ground fire, one engine damaged by Abrams cannon fire collapsed and exploded, taking storages with it. Apparently systems that could have stopped the resulting backlash from the explosion wasn't very high on the priority list of the Doranian engineers and so the fire reached the main reactor.

The outer hull managed to contain most of the explosion, but that was bad thing to happen. Explosions in enclosed rooms aren't funny at all.

And so visual data was checked, commands were given, and all those Doranian soldiers who survived mostly ended under mortar fire.

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Commander Anseal growled. It seemed that the natives weren't totally worthless opponents. He really wanted to strike back but if there were any other enemy units ready for attack the last forces of landing ship 3 would be overrun.

A temporary retreat was his only option.

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"It seems they are retreating," Towers said.

Kowalsky nodded.

"Good news for us. If that landing ship didn't blow up our advance troops would have been in serious trouble."

"What we need to change the plans. We can't move towards those beachheads when the ships are intact. Their heavy fire is more than enough to destroy even Abrams. Also our forces need more armor piercing munition instead regulars."

"Speaking of plans. Do we have anything up there that could lay waste over those retreating Doranians? I really don't want them to get back under those shields."

"We have few of F/A-18's with cluster bombs up there. We were going to use then should Doranians make large scale advances outside city limits. Some mortar fire on them before planes make run and I'm sure they can do it," Arnolds answered.

"Ah yes, those. Well it doesn't seem they are making advances right now, so I guess we can use them."

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Delenn and Neroon were watching the news with great interest. Apparently with only little fighting and luck, human troops had managed to break through the Doranian defenses in one area and were now retreating.

This is Richard Talbot, CNN news, high above the streets of LA. As you can see the Doranians are moving down the street to closest landing ship. It doesn't look like the Marines are going to follow them and it seems they... wait, there's something happening down there. Mortar fire, mortar fire is raining down on the Doranians and they are diving for any cover they can find.

"Hmm, it seems humans are making some moves on them. I was wondering if they were just going to let them walk out."

"What do you think they are planning?" Delenn asked.

"They don't have much ground troops in city yet so," Neroon's started to answer but stopped when two F-18's appeared.

It seems that the Navy is going to do a bombing run and... Oh holy Mother of God

The street around the Doranians suddenly turned into exploding inferno.

Delenn couldn't help it. As the camera from the news helicopter zoomed in on the street, all she could see were Doranians, dead or dying, and she made valiant dash to the toilet before her latest meal could get out on the wrong end.

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Admiral Jackson glanced back and forth between the different holo screens in the Global Defense Center. He was itching to just go and order a ship to execute an orbital strike at the two Doranian beachheads in LA, but if he did, he would destroy more of LA than any Doranian ground attack could destroy.

So he was only able to watch, from the orbit through the sensors of Firefinder and through the many different news channels, CNN, FOX, BBC and so many others. CNN had been quite fast to switch away from the on site camera showing the mangled remains of a Doranian attack force, but FOX boasted with showing them.

The whole truth indeed.

"Forming Jump Point," a sensory tech suddenly said. "It has an Earth Alliance signature."

Jackson blinked a few times, but than smiled a little, thankful for the distraction from LA.

"On screen," he said, getting a few sour looks from some of the techs.

The main hologram, formally showing the broadcast from CNN, changed to showing a part of space. A small bright speck of light formed in the center of the hologram before blooming to the large funnel of the Jump Point.

Not long after the Jump Point had opened completely, three large and several smaller objects dropped from Jump Space back into normal space and the Jump Point collapsed.

Two of the large objects were identical and looked like the Regula 1 station from Star Trek, through the pylon structures ended in more Star Trek dry dock style structures and it had only three of them instead of four. They were also about two kilometers in diameter.

The third large object was a massive ship that could only be described as ugly and utilitarian, even more so than any Earth Force ship. And it was quite obviously a large freighter with a length of one and a half kilometer.

The smaller objects were eggshaped and obviously Ferron ships.

"We get EA IFF transponder signals from all ships," Sergeant Seiler, one of the technicians, said." The two structures are the mobile ship yards _D-12_ and _K-7_. The large ships is IDed as Ferron 50 Megaton freighter _Bright Horizon_ of Bright Horizon Freight. We also have two Ferron Frigates and three Ferron Corvettes. - _Bright_ _Horizon_ is hailing us."

A smaller hologram popped up, showing a bark blue skinned Ferron of slender build, wearing something that looked like a Captains cap from any Earth wet navy. The Ferron smiled.

"This is Seran Chaktor, captain of the Bright Horizon. I'm calling Earth Traffic Control."

Jackson nodded into Seilers direction, who nodded back.

"Admiral Jackson of Earth Defense Center on Shabazza. Welcome to Earth, Captain."

"Thank you Admiral," Chaktor said." This is my first time away from the Tanos system, so I hope everything works out good."

Jackson chuckled a little.

"I'm a bit curious about your freighter. We thought that we would need to send one of our ships into Jump Space to get the ship yards into normal space. And we hadn't thought that you would come that fast."

"We got lucky and found a grav wave that allowed us to accelerate faster while staying on the Tachyon beam," Chaktor said with a laugh." And I'm here, because the government chartered my ship for transporting one of the obsolete first gen Jump Gates here."

Jackson blinked.

"You brought a Jump Gate?"

The freighter captain smiled more.

"And a bit more. The Jump Gate is strapped to the hull and only weights about ten megatons. That are fourty megatons free for just about everything. And a few mega corporations came to me, they are interested in trade arrangements with Earth. New markets and all that."

"Hooo boy..." Jackson summed it up quite nicely.

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"I need to help," Ryoko answered Ryo-Ohki's question as the cabbit made her reentry into Earth's atmosphere above the South Atlantic.

"Miah," the cabbit said and Ryoko nodded.

"Its a place where I need to help. The Russians took care of their Doranians and the United States are more than capable of handling theirs. First we help here, than in South Africa."

Ryo-Ohki pushed deeper into the atmosphere and changed her course, flying along the coast of Brasil. She was just a few hundred meters above the ocean as she passed Rio de Janeiro, clearly visible for anyone who was on their feet. The shock waves of her supersonic pass were like the double bang of a howitzer for anyone in the city, announcing that a helper was on her way to Sao Paolo.

Ryo-Ohki dropped her speed as she came to Sao Paolo, the burning parts of the city very visible even from several ten kilometers distance. And in the center of all that were four Doranian landing ships, protected by their shields and the Doranian ground troops, slaughtering their way through the city.

Ryoko looked at the burning city and closed her eyes for a moment as memories from burning cities all over the galaxy came to her mind. Cities that had burned because of her. She grit her teeth and her partner stopped and hovered above the edge of the city.

"Get water," Ryoko said." Get as much as you can with your forcefields and drop it over the flames."

Her partner miahed in response and Ryoko teleported outside.

As she materialized, she could see how Doranians had started to fire their weapons as the cabbit, shots that bounced harmlessly of her shields.

Ryoko looked down. It was worse than she had thought. She had never thought that Sao Paolo was such a dense populated city. From the place she floated she could see how Doranians massacred humans. Most of those humans looked like they were fighting back. But their improvised weapons couldn't hurt the Doranians. And if there was the odd gun, the rifleman was shot down himself.

Again her memories resurfaced. She had done these things too, while she had been under Kagato's control. But she would never be like this again. Never again.

"NEVER AGAIN!"

With that scream she phased into her battle suit and activated her sword. She teleported again, rematerializing between the Doranian troopers.

He sword cut through the light and powered armor of the Doranians like a hot knife through butter. With a single sweep five Doranians fell to the ground in ten pieces and never had the chance to even scream.

The rest of the squad only noticed as Ryoko's sword crippled a sixth Doranian, swiping both legs from beneath him. He screamed loudly before being decapitated by the next swipe. Ryoko never let any of the Doranians a single moment to realize what happened.

Throwing herself into a group that fought a mob of humans with their bare claws, she threw two energy balls into another group of Doranians who were getting ready to replace their comrades when they lost their power to fight and needed to catch their breath. The two balls found their targets detonating with a force similar to a block of C-4 each.

As merciless as the Doranians had cut down the humans, Ryoko cut into the Doranian troopers.

Most of the men and women still in the street, fighting against the Doranians themselves, were religious catholic people, like many people in South America. To them the appearance of Ryoko was like a wonder, lierally. She had appeared out of thin air, wielded a sword of light and throwing flaming balls into the Doranians. While they weren't superstitious or backwards, Ryoko still appeared to be an avenging angel send by the heavens.

Some of the men and women started to pray as Ryoko had finished of the last of the Doranians ans stood between the dead, Doranian and human alike.

One of the men stepped forward, careful not to step on any human body. As Ryoko looked at him she didn't see the fear or panic she had expected. Instead his face showed a mix of adoration, even worship, and thank.

"Thank you," the man said in Portuguese.

Ryoko just looked at him, not able to understand his words. As she couldn't understand the man, she knew that he wouldn't have understood her if she tried to reply. So she just nodded, before teleporting down the street, where Ryo-Ohki had detected more Doranians coming into this direction.

As she disappeared, the men and women looked at each other. They knew this was not over. But they would be damned if they wouldn't fight until the last Doranian was dead. Not if an Avenging Angel was on their side.

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With rumbling tracks twenty M270 MLRS missile launchers, thirty M109 Paladin howitzer and a good number of trucks with ordnance drive on the empty air field of the Long Beach Air Port. Normally the carrier of the airport wouldn't have been very pleased about this, but at this moment, they didn't really care as the airport was shut down at the moment anyway.

The Airport was about 17 kilometers distant to Municipal Park and with it to the Doranian beach head, just in range for the Paladins, while the MLRS could have been further away. But that would have been more of a problem.

The fifty tracked howitzers and missile launcher stopped on the large patches of land between the runways and prepared for their work. Satellite links were established and the artillery crews prepared to let themselves be guided by _USS Firefinder_ in orbit.

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Kowalski grinned a little. Finally the Army would be part of this little battle.

He and the other two generals glanced at the display and at the place where the Doranians were beginning to fortify their positions bot in Beverly Hills and at South Central. They could see how the Doranians had retreated below the shield domes of their remaining two ships in South Central.

"We should hammer the ground all around them. We have to confine them around their ships until we can get these Tomahawks and Harpoons."

Kowalski glanced at Arnolds, who rolled his eyes.

"The _Los Angeles_ confirmed the launch of all their non-nuclear Tomahawks," Seiler noted dryly.

"They still need forty minutes to be in LA."

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The sounds of thirty 155mm howitzers firing at the same time caused the windows of the entire Long Beach Airport to shake and the windows of all homes in up to two kilometers distance. The swisching sounds of the MLRS firing had a lower volume but the payload of the rockets was much higher.

Twelve rockets were fired from each of the twenty MLRS in less than thirty seconds, making a total of 240 M26 rockets heading for the area around the three landing ships. Due to one of the technicians up in _Firefinder_ feeling that the Doranians needed to be taught a lesson, more than sixty of the missiles were heading for the wrecked Doranian ship.

The missiles detonated over their targets and submunitions rained down on the targets. Hundreds of shaped changes rained down on the wrecked ship, detonating on contact. Lances of molten metal slammed into the wrecked hull as they detonated all over the top half of the ship, punching right through the reinforced hull.

The rest of the rockets and submunitions fell towards the other two ships and their shield domes. Even if they couldn't do much to help breaking through the shield, they sure caused a storm of noise throughout the domes as they began to literally vibrate from the assault. For felines like the Doranians it was like someone directly induced pain into their ears and not even the systems of their armor was able to really help.

The first shells from the howitzers followed not late after the missiles. Each of the shells stuck the shield domes, giving it a new punch and a new source of noise.


	27. Chapter 27

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 26 (Parts written by Reikson over at the Maximum Addventure)

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"... CNN. Not just Los Angeles is under the siege of the Doranian, but also the once beautiful city of Sao Paolo. Now many parts of the city are burning as the Doranians are moving through the city. The Brasilan Army is not yet in the area and the only organized armed resistance is found in the slums of the city."

The image on the large Plasma screen changed and showed shaky images taken by a hand camera. Men and women, mostly armed with AK-47, uzis and several handguns were shooting down into a nearby group of Doranians.

People screamed and yelled in Portuguese, a language neither Delenn nor Neroon were able to understand it.

"However, the resistance by the local gangs and other criminal organizations in the slums are just one image from the battle of Sao Paolo. Just ten minutes ago one woman came to this city and began to turn the tide for the citizens of this proud city."

Again the image changed and showed how Ryoko made her way right through a large group of Doranians, her sword leaving a trail of the Doranians pink blood on the ground and scorched corpses where she threw her energy balls.

Delenn turned pale and Neroons face went hard.

"Surviving men and women have started to call this woman an 'Avenging Angel', not really a surprise in the mostly catholic South America and the image she presents while fighting the Doranian warriors. The White House in Washington has already released information about this woman."

The screen changed back to the news host and the studio, with an image of a civil clothed Ryoko, smiling and flashing a Victory sign, in the back ground.

"Much like the Jurians in Japan, the Minbari in Geneva or the Doranians, this woman is an alien, going by the name of Ryoko Hakubi. She was the main reason why the Doranian Invasion fleet was defeated two hours ago, before they could overwhelm the ships of Home Guard. Now she is essential for the defeat of the Doranians yet again, just on the ground in Sao Paolo."

Neroon was getting a red face, while Delenn started to shake.

On the screen, the image behind the news host changed to show the ship form of Ryo-Ohki.

"Her ship, Ryo-Ohki, a ship with an advanced artificial intelligence, is currently helping to extinguish the fires all over Sao Paolo and had been reported to have fired its weapons at the Doranian Landing Ships destroying two if them outright, while damaging the others."

"Madness," Neroon whispered." This is madness!"

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Radar was scanning the horizon and the area around as it made its way over the ocean. GPS data sreamed into the computer, confirming the position. With a little less than nine hundred kilometers per hour the BGM-109 Tomahawk made its way towards the city of Los Angeles. Behind it where ten more of its kind.

Not even ten meters above the waves it changed from ocean navigation to land following as it crosses the coast at Redondo Beach, startling anyone who was still at thew beach. Following its program and several guidance beacons placed by Marine scouts it closed in on Municipal Park.

As it followed the beacons and raced along first along West and than East Florance Avenue, its altitude dropped down to three meters. Skimming just above, but never hitting any of the obstacles it followed the street, its optical sensors looked out for a small spot of coherent infrared light.

Just as its passed over Pacific Boulevard, it found the red spot it had looked for. It passed over the outer perimeter of the Marine blockade, missing the top of a single Abrams just by thirty centimeters it dropped down to two meters altitude.

Al the while it made its way towards Municipal Park, it transmitted TV images to a satellite high above and live to CNN.

Katsuhito didn't even so much flinch as he looked at the face of a surprised Doranian warrior, just before the image disappeared, only to be replaced by static. Next to him Sairyo blinked. On the screen the white noise was replaced from a direct look from the CNN helicopter above South Central. Large scale detonations were seen from the Doranian ships with a spacing of less then a second.

"What..." Sairyo said.

Katsuhito looked at Sairyo and sighed.

"That was a prime example for modern human journalism. And what mankind has to surprise everyone."

He himself didn't really think much of it. Maybe the life on Earth had changed him a little more than he had thought. A broadcast similar to what CNN showed now was unthinkable in the rest of the Galaxy, where the news were used for propaganda. There wasn't much that could be called independent journalism.

It would be interesting to see how the galaxy reacted to human journalism. Even more than how the galaxy would react to human military doctrine.

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Ramsey raised an eyebrow as he took the sheet of paper from a stone faced Jones.

"News from Earth," he said and Ramsey could see he only barely had himself under control.

"Thank you," Ramsey said and looked down to the orders.

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TO: _USS NAUTILUS_, Captain Marco Ramsey

FROM: COMSUBSPEC

PRORITY: HIGH

Re: Earth Situation & Unofficial Additional Orders

We have a situation down here. Not even two hours ago, Earth was attacked by a full Doranian Invasion Force. While Home Guards performance was good, she wasn't enough to handle the situation. Only the intervention of Ryoko Habuki and Ryo-Ohki, the Invasion Fleet was fend off.

However, fifteen Doranian Landing Ships were able to slip through and land on Earth. Landing Areas are Los Angeles, Volgograd, Sao Paolo and Pretoria. The Volgograd force was destroyed by Russians FAEs, while the other need to be fend of by conventional means.

The CIC, as well as many other Head of State, think that we need to execute a Doolittle Run on the Doranian Protectorate to show them not to mess with us.

Take _Nautilus_ to the Doranian home world, slip through their defenses and give them some of their own medicine.

Treat is as black ops until I can give official orders.

Good luck with 'Operation Deep Strike'.

Admiral Bart Mancuso, COMCUBSPEC

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Ramsey looked up, like the face of Jones his face now seemed to be carved in stone.

He picked up the microphone of the ships 1 MC.

"People, we just got some news from Earth."

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Bismark was sitting in the Mess Hall of _Nautilus_, working his way through the information on a notebook. He had to say that this little thing was a very nice invention. He had learned quite a few things about the world today and what had happened in the last seventy years.

Ever since the break from the Doranian ship and out of slavery, he had became the de facto leader of the rescued former slaves, with Haruka being something of his second in command. The Shin'bi was a little surprised when she also had been offered a notebook to read about Earth and even more when she had found out that her mother language, just like Intercosmo were identical to the Japanese language on Earth, and that she could use the notebook in her own language.

"People, we just got some news from Earth," Ramsey's voice suddenly called out over the ship wide communication system." It seems that the Doranians have send a full invasion fleet to Earth."

Bismark stopped and Haruka looked at him strangely,the only words she had recognized were 'Doranians' and 'Earth'. Bismark frowned and one of his eyebrows started to twitch.

"The Invasion force got beat, with the help of Ryoko and Ryo-Ohki, but the Doranians landed several ships on Earth. In LA, Volgograd, Sao Paolo and Pretoria. The Russians blew up the Doranians, but the other forces need to be fought classically."

Bismark knew what that meant. He had seen enough Doranian warriors during his time as slave. They preferred to fight in close quarters with their quite deadly claws, but also used ranged weapons. It would get ugly very fast.

"Admiral Mancuso gave us some inofficial orders and until they are confirmed, we are going to treat this like any other black op. We are going to the Doranian home world, sneak in and give them some of their own medicine."

Ramsey made a pause.

"It will be our first real challenge. Lets survive it."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Commander Keras, one of the officers overseeing the second northern beachhead of this invasion, was currently busy conferring with quite a number of his squad leaders, all of whom were, including him, busy perusing a map of the city that they had landed in.

Thanks to the barrage of explosives that was currently battering away at the protective shields, they had been forced to recall all of their troops back into the pre-fabricated buildings in order to keep them from either going deaf, or incapacitating them.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

One of Keras' officers, a sub-Colonel Firaka, ground out, "These tactics that the Earthers use are..." here, he had to shamefully admit, "...revolutionary and possibly superior to ours..." before he then added, "...but that does not mean that we are not helpless!"

Another officer, a Colonel Arriketh, snarled angrily, "And how will that be proved, genius? Most of our available troops were forced to retreat inside the pre-fabbed buildings in order to avoid permanent damage!"

Firaka snapped angrily, "Colonel, note the operative word 'most.' We still have a few squads of troopers tasked with hunting down and culturing worthy prey. We can use them, collaborate our computers in order to determine the trajectory of the bombers, and then use the squads to take them before releasing our troops again!"

This was probably the best thing Keras had heard all day. He turned to sub-Colonel Firaka and said, "Firaka, if you pull this off, I'll be sure to promote you. But, if this doesn't pan out, you're as good as dead, do you hear me?"

But little did Keras know that Firaka's idea would not be able to be carried out.

Why, one might ask? It's simple. The numerous gangs inhabiting the greater Los Angeles area had temporarily joined forces with the Los Angeles Police Department, had broken into armories and also pilfered quite a number of melee weapons and close-combat weapons.

Using these supplies, the gangs soon set themselves up as trappers, who used the LAPD police officers as bait.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

One such example was within Mountain View Cemetery. A squad of very-bored Doranians were using their claws and animal strength to trash everything in sight.

Just as they were about to use their weapons, a human voice said, "You there, freeze! Surrender now, and you won't get hurt!"

This, of course, made the Doranians present laugh hysterically, as they turned around to see two human men, one of whom was light-skinned while the other was dark-skinned, with small tufts of fur growing on its face. Both were pointing weapons at them.

One of the Doranians merely pulled up his own weapon, and promptly opened fire with a stream of tiny plasma blasts.

Even as he did, however, several shafts of some kind suddenly embedded themselves into the squadron of Doranians, felling two of them. From around them, a motley-looking group of male human adolescents and young adults attacked them, using extremely-primitive edged weapons and melee weapons.

Human brutality, when combined with primal rage, caused some pretty nasty things to occur. This was the case with this particular fight, as the Bloods, the Crips and the Latin Kings used axes, knifes and other weapons of all kinds in order to messily kill the remaining eight Doranians, mostly by decapitation or dismemberment. There was even the afrodermized baseball bat with a rusty nail in it.

Gouts of pinkish, red-green Doranian blood decorated the immediate vicinity, even as the two police officers then executed a courier who was about to run, after having seen the gruesome sight.

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"I knew it," Tenchi said out loud as he looked at the communique from Earth.

Admiral Kertal sighed. Much like Tenchi he had expected that the Doranians would attack both systems at the same time. However Earth had had more luck than Rustoner.

"I think Earth will be able to defeat the Doranians on the surface on their own," Kertal said." We need to think about Gol and Rustoner and what we are going to do there."

Tenchi frowned. The probing attack two hours ago had brought some very good informations, however the combined Ferron/Earth forces were not enough to fight of the Doranians and retake Rustoner and Gol.

"We need to confine them at Rustoner and at the same time prevent them from getting the initiative, at least more than they already got."

Kertal nodded and looked at the holographic display.

"The question is how are we going to do it? We only have so many ships capable of Jump Space entry on their own and slipstream flight. And since our ships are not shielded like yours, we can't really fight them without loosing the majority of our units. The new ships may be able to take much more, but the rest..."

"I know," Tenchi said with a sigh and glared at the display.

There was silence for several minutes as they tried to come up with any idea, broken by D, one of _Dark_ _Knights_ avatars.

"Well, we could try and pull a Sheridan."

Kertal and Tenchi blinked.

"A Sheridan?" Tenchi asked." I don't think I know what you mean."

D showed a smug grin as she explained.

"Remember the Za'ha'dum incident, the lost _White_ _Star_ and the presumed death of Sheridan?"

Tenchi suddenly laughed out loud, and than looked at Kertal.

"I think I might have a nice solution. I bet there are quite a few old freighters around here."

Kertal blinked.

"I don't think I know what you mean."

"Its like this," Tenchi said and explained.

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_Protectors_ _Might_ was the flagship of the Doranian Invasion Fleet and as such she was the flagship of Sub-General Nermel, the head of the fleet.

Nermel was concerned. He had lost several of his ships during a raid some time ago and it was not sitting well with him. The actual invasion of the moon below was going quite well, even if most of the planets population had fled for the large forests of the moon. The fact that most computer storages had been destroyed was more of a failure from his ground troops.

Through his interrogators would have quite some fun time getting informations of military value from the new slaves. Like how many ships the defense fleet of this system had, how advanced they really were, how many colonies and all those little things.

He heard the chime to his his room and turned around from the window after glancing at the large planet of Gol.

"Enter," he said and the door opened.

The commander of the ship entered.

"General," he said after respectfully presenting his throat to Nermel for several moments." We have picked up something strange with the long range sensors."

"Explain," Nermel said and walked up to the Commander.

"Several unknown contacts coming towards us at about ten PSL. From the energy signatures and the course vectors it seems to be a transport convoy from the inner system. They are coming right towards us."

Nermel smiles a catty smile as he thought about the possibilities.

"I want a task force to go and take that convoy when they slow down. We..."

He wasn't able to say much more as a tech suddenly jumped into the room.

"Commander, the convoy is accelerating at huge rates. And they come right at the fleet."

Nermel and the Commander glared at the tech, who quickly disappeared.

"Some of these kittens need to learn proper respect," Nermel said." I want him in the noise chamber for ten minutes. And I want some intact computer cores from those ships."

The Commander nodded sharply before leaving the room.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Five Ten MegaTon freighters were increasing their speed as they closed in on Rustoner and the Doranian fleet in orbit. There wasn't a single person on any of the ships and the computer cores had been wiped clean. They just had to do one last job.

Even if they were old and freighters, they had very powerful engines, build to move ten million tons of freight, not including the mass of the freighter itself. But now, they didn't carry fright, not much anyway and so their engines could push them forward much faster than ever. And not needing any life support or artificial gravity at this moment, they could pour every bit of energy into their drives.

Pushing close to nineteen times Earth gravity, they weren't much faster than a Ferron gunboat, but much faster than any Doranian ship.

Getting closer to Rustoner, they followed their programming and went right into the bulk of the Doranian fleet. Doranian commanders recognized the movements from the invasion of the Stribe and fired at the freighters.

Two of the freighters were hit in their engine sections, but that didn't really put them out of action. The Doranians hadn't very much time as the freighters had closed in on them and so any other defense was useless. They would lose at least three ships. But they were wrong.

Packed with a large amount of gravitic bombs, a rarely used weapon in the Ferron Arsenal, the freighters did what they were send to do. They blew up. Or down. It was hard to tell from the effects of the gravitic bombs.

As the bombs ignited each created an extremely concentrated gravitic field, each nearly as intense as a black hole. Wrapping space the hundred of miniature singularities pulled at shields and the ships protected by them. But the singularities were short lived and destroyed themselves.

But they did their job. Fifty Doranian ships had literally been pulled apart by the gravitic sheer forces. On of them was the _Protectors_ _Might._


	28. Chapter 28

Back Home – The Dual War

Chapter 27

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G'Kar looked at the screen with great interest. He was intrigued by the way the humans fought against the Doranians. As far as he could tell, they weren't following any of the rules that were 'normal' in the galaxy.

Okay most races didn't follow all those 'Civilized Combat Rules' as the old races called them, but they followed most of these rules. The humans didn't.

They seemed to use primitive projectile weapons as weapons of choice, something frowned upon by the rest of the galaxy as they either killed an opponent or injured them to various degrees. The use of explosives was another example. They dropped high explosives onto the Doranians, effectively killing or mortally injuring them.

He could imagine what the Doranians thought about what happened to them. But G'Kar couldn't help but smile as he looked at the uncensored images coming to him over CNN. He had cought himself cheering for the humans once or twice already. Of cause that had gotten him several looks from some of the other people in the Masaki Home where he was a guest for the time being.

He looked at the others watching TV with him.

There was Mihoshi, the Galaxy Police Cop. She seemed to be sowhat enthralled by the images. Sometimes she cheered for the humans, sometimes she was near tears because of something she saw on the screen.

Than Sasami. G'Kar wasn't really sure what to think of the girl. Okay, she may be a few hundred years old, but G'Kar knew that she was still just a child and she had slept in stasis for several hundred years at that. But he didn't really know how she could watch these pictures and have this strange melancholic look on her face. As if she remembered something.

And Ayeka... Her reaction was as clear as the day outside. She was seething in anger. Anger that was clearly directed at the human warriors and Ryoko, who had been shown earlier on CNN.

"... just confirmed that the latest bombardment of Tomahawk Cruise Missiles destroyed the last of the three Landing Ships in South Central LA. But there are still about a thousand Doranian Warriors outside of the shield dome who were able to flee from the side of bombardment even before the first missile hit the Landing ships. At the moment they are moving towards the Beverly Hills Beach head where just Air Force units have attacked. Up to date..."

G'Kar watched as Ayeka's head took on a very unhealthy deep red color and seemed to blow steam from her ears. She stood up and left the room.

G'Kar looked at the two other girls in the room, who were still looking at the TV, and shook his head. He also stood up and followed Ayeka, careful not to be seen by her. But he doubted that she even noticed him at the moment, they way she glared at Nobujoki, who had just come home.

The poor man let all his work fall down to the ground and backed against a wall as Ayeka walked past him. As he continued to follow her outside and into the forrest surrounding the house and the Shrine, G'Kar could see how the air around the Jurian Princess seemed to grow more and more electrified and how small wooden logs appeared from no where.

"I DON'T WANT THE HUMAN TO WIN!" she suddenly screamed into the air and an electric shock destroyed one of the nearby trees.

G'Kar hid behind one big tree and gulped. He spoke a short prayer to G'Quan ans continued to listen to her.

"I WANT THEM TO LOOSE! I WANT THEM TO CRAWL TO US FOR HELP!"

G'Kar sweatdropped. He knew that she had taken the news of the human 'independence' hard, but this was a little too far out there.

"I DON'T WANT RYOKO TO BE A HERO! I WANT HER DEAD! DEAD! DEAD!"

At each of the shouted 'dead' another tree exploded from an electric blast.

"I WANT TENCHI!"

G'Kar ducked as several other trees simply exploded as electric blasts streaked out into all directions and that for several moments.

"Tactical retreat," G'Kar muttered and carefully moved away from the now larger clearing and the smoking trees. Yosho would be very interested in these news.

"SAIRYO."

A shudder passed over him. The shadows around Ayeka had looked as if they had been alive.

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"I demand an explanation!"

President Jack Ryan blinked as he looked at the red face of one of the Minbari in Geneva, Neroon was his name if he remembered right. He had just now called the White House over the holographic com system of Washuu.

"It would be nice to know for what you want an explanation, Mr. Neroon," he answered after breathing in deep.

"I talk about the blatant defiance of the Rules of Combat."

"'Rules of Combat'?" Ryan asked.

Neroons eyes narrowed.

"Don't play me for a fool. You know what I mean. I've watched how you fight against the Doranians. You have broken every 'Rule of Combat' that is known to the galaxy."

Now Ryans eyes narrowed.

"I believe that we have much more experience in these things, Mr. Neroon. And it is our planet that is now facing an Invasion, since you seem to have forgotten about that."

Neroons face became redder if even possible.

"You have more experience?"

Ryan allowed himself a thin smile.

"In fact yes. If you like to take a look at our history, you will find that we have fought several large scale wars on our planet. We have our own 'Rules of Engagement' and we are going to follow them. And it seems that they are not the same as the 'Rules of Combat'. We certainly don't have a problem with that."

Neroon seemed to be taken aback when Ryan had mentioned the 'large scale wars'. Even more he was taken aback that Ryan had just resisted a member of the Minbari.

He needed a few moments to pull himself back together. His face lost some of the red color, but not all. And the sneer was back at full force.

"I will research on that. And now I demand that the criminal you are hosting on your planet to be given to the Galactic Federation for trial."

Of cause Ryan knew who Neroon talked about, but he didn't really care at the moment. Not with this 'holier than thou' attitude.

"I don't know who you are speaking about."

Again Neroons face got redder.

"I speak of Ryoko and her ship Ryo-Ohki!"

"The United States are not going to extradite any of its citizens to a foreign government without an investigation of the claims. But as far as I can tell any charges on her have expired according to US laws."

Ryan watched as Neroons face went beet red and how steam seemed to come from his ears.

"As far as I know she was imprisoned for her crimes here on Earth for the past seven hundred years and has changed. Not to mention that she has just rescued Earth and is currently helping in Sao Paolo to defeat the Doranian Invasion Force there."

Neroon was just barely able to hold himself back as he glared at Ryan.

"We will talk about this later," he all but hissed before closing the connection.

Ryan just looked at the place where the holo had been and slumped back in his seat.

"I somehow think that we just got a little problem more..."

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Londo Molari wasn't a happy camper. Here he was, on the bridge aboard one of Lord Refas Vorchans of all things. No doubt it was Refas way to show how he didn't like how the Molari Families fleet had fled from the newly discovered system in the Corian Expanse.

Londo was pretty sure it was just spite as the Molari fleet had been opposed by Minbari and Jurians. But at least Londo had the pleasure to treat the Vorchan like his own ship. He would use this very much.

Than a few days ago, the Jurians had announced to the local powers that they had left the planet, Dirt, to its own devices and gave them independence. Now the Republic needed an ambassador. One who knew what to do, one who was considered expandable.

And than there was Vir Coto. Okay, Vir had worked for him for some time, but this young man was just a little too naive for a place like the League. Maybe it was possible that he could learn something from Londo when he had to deal with these primitives on this backwater planet.

The Vorchan was just a few moments from leaving slipstream as close as possible to the planet to give these primitives a good scare.

"Leaving slipstream," one of the bridge crew said and the screen changed from showing the streams of starlight to showing the blue orb of the planet 'Dirt'.

For a few moments not much happened. But than several things happened at the same time. A very powerful particle beam suddenly stood in space just a few hundred meters in front of the ships bow and it the Vorchan had been any faster, the beam would have sliced into the ship.

A small part of Londo's panicked mind noted that the crew was dealing with this very professionally, even if they were scared shitless.

"We-we are being hailed," the head radio technician said and the captain of the ship just nodded.

There wasn't a video image transmitted, but everyone could hear a voice speaking clear ad accentless Intercosmo.

"This is Earth Global Defense Center Shabazza," the voice said, a dangerous edge in its tone." To unidentified Centauri Vessel. Identify yourselves and state your business. You have one minute to comply."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Admiral Jackson had put his hands behind his back as he looked at the projection of the Centauri Vorchan. He had personally ordered the warning shot from one of the GODs.

Okay, maybe it was a little too much, but considering what the Centauri had pulled some days ago, it was better to deal after a little show of strength and do some damage to their egos, when everything the CIA spooks had found out was right.

Much like his Russian colleague he really liked the Earth Force designed weapons and ships. They were bristling with weapons and could take more advanced ships of the same class. He was pretty sure that, even with full strength shield, the Vorchan would be reduced to space debris by a single GOD. And the battle against the Doranians had shown how effective they were.

"The fleet is maneuvering into flanking positions to the Vorchan," Seiler said and Jackson nodded." And we are being hailed from the Vorchan. Audio/Video."

Jackson nodded again and the channel opened. The screen showed a very humanoid being in an elaborate uniform, much like old roman uniforms, with a nearly bald head, surrounded by a crest of hair.

"Captain Lirol Refa of the Centauri Republic ship Tersol. We are a diplomatic transport, we have the Ambassador to 'Dirt' on the ship."

Jackson raised an eyebrow as he looked into the eyes of the Centauri.

"Admiral Jackson of Earth Global Defense," he said and showed a sly smile." I'm sorry that we were firing on you, but we are a little paranoid at the moment. A Doranian Invasion Fleet had attacked us just four hours ago and our trigger fingers are a little twitchy."

The Centauri captain seemed to sweat a little.

"I can understand that," he said." But we are reading very little debris."

Jackson shrugged, ready to deal the next blow to the Centauri ego.

"We had a little help from one of our allies, Ryoko and Ryo-Ohki. They were so nice to deal with most of the Doranian Fleet."

The Centauri went white and swallowed, but it was clear that he wanted to safe his face.

"I... I see... Is there a place where we can dock?"

Jackson nodded again and looked at Seiler.

"We age giving you a string of nav beacons in galactic standard to lead you to one of Shabazzas docking points."

"Than you," the Centauri said and the connection was cut.

"That wasn't very diplomatic," Admiral Davis said from behind and Jackson chuckles.

"I think they deserved some blows to their egos."

"True..."

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"These Doranians aren't all that though," Marine Sergeant Mitchell said as he pointed his M4 at a group of Doranian Soldiers.

Said Doranians were kneeling on the ground in front of them, their hands behind their heads, while Mitchells squad was either pointing their weapons at the cats or busy to grab the Doranians weapon.

"I can't believe that they just fell over in the middle of the fight," Corporal Zoidberg noted and shook his head.

"Have you seen the size of these guns, Doc?" another trooper said.

Zoidberg grumbles, ever since Futurama had been out, he was on the receiving end of Zoidberg jokes and it had gotten him the nickname 'Doc', even if he wasn't even a corpsman or a doc. Hell, he had even dropped out of Highschool.

Zoidberg looked at the sheer size of the gun. It was at least as large as a M2, if not larger. And from what he had seen from a trooper lifting such a gun, he knew that they were heavy too.

"Still doesn't really explain why these kittens are so winded."

That got him a growl from several of the Doranians, but he didn't care. Not when the last of the Landing Ships had just been blown to smithereens in Beverly Hills. Who knew that their armor was so flimsy that they couldn't take some cruise missiles.

Now they just had to mop up the remains of the Doranians and put them into some sort of Prison Camp. But there had to be at least three thousand of the damned cats somewhere in LA. They would need some time to get them all, especially with the Doranians using hostages.

Suddenly the air was filled with wooshing sounds and three of the squaddies dropped to the ground, unable to say or do anything as plasma discharges burned right through their flag vests and into their bodies.

"Cover!" Mitchell screamed, but the rest of the squad didn't need to be told.

"Shit!"

The scream brought his look back at the prisoners. Some of them were scrambling for their weapons. Two of them were stopped as the AP bullets from an M4 hit their legs, arms or torsos.

"Fire in the Hole!"

An explosion rocked the area as the grenade exploded in the area where the other Dorainans had to be. The Plasma fire stopped for a moment, before it started again.

Just as Mitchell wanted to call for reinforcements, he could hear another noise over the fire from Marine and Doranian Weapons. The noise became louder before a black shape appeared over the tops of some nearby houses.

A large 30 mm gun hanging from the black shape opened up and 30mm armor piercing bullets slammed into the barricade the attacking Doranians used as cover. Than a pair of Hydra-70 streaked out from wing mounted rackets and slammed into the barricade, sending splinters everywhere.

The gun stopped and the Apache hovering above a nearby house moved slightly, just in time to evade Plasma Fire coming into its direction.

"Oh shit," Mitchell heard himself say as he completely dropped to the ground, but not before seeing how a Hellfire streaked away and into the burning fire where the barricade used to be not so long ago.

The engine of the Hellfire hadn't even completely burned out as it hit the Heavy Powered Armor of a Doranian squad leader. Not didn't immediately explode, but its momentum and the power of its engine threw the Doranian back before the shaped charge of its warhead exploded, sending a pencil thick stream of molten metal through the Powered Armor and into the body of the Doranian.

Again splinters rained down on the area around them. Mitchell looked up and than back at his prisoners. It seemed that they were pretty much shell shocked at the display of the Apache.

Mitchel just swallowed as he looked towards the former barricade and the two houses that had been pretty much destroyed., first by the fight to catch the first batch of Doranians who had been entrenched in one of the houses and than the fight with the second group of Doranians.

The Apache just hovered above the house on the other side of the street, the pilot giving Mitchell's squad the thumbs-up. Mitchell just nodded and returned the thumbs-up, before turning to the remains of his squad.

"Lets pack these guys up and get the hell out of here."

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"I would guess this concludes the Battle of Los Angeles," Kowalski said.

The last of the five Doranisn landing ships had been bombed into oblivion, taking most of the support of the Doranians with them. Now all the Marines, Army, National Guard and cops had to do was herding the rest of the Doranians together and get them either to give up or else...

"And the Governator is getting all the publicity," Towers noted drily, looking at the TV where they could see FOX News.

"Who wants to be that he's going to win the next elections?" Arnolds asked.

"I don't take sucker bets," Kowalski said with a slight grin." Any news from Sao Paolo and Pretoria?"

One of the aids in the War Room switched the channel of one TV to CNN South America. They looked at the screen for some time, before Kowalski nodded.

"Seems like the Brasilian Army is doing a good job. And the help of Ryoko is showing."

The image on the screen changed from showing how Ryoko tore into Doranian troops, to several Leopard 1A5 tanks shooting down a street and into a larger group of retreating Doranians, while being backed up by several APCs firing from their machine guns.

Again the image changed and showed how the shield canopies of the Landing ships were shelled by artillery. Than Ryo-Ohki appeared above the landing ships. A beam of energy lanced out from one spine of Ryo-Ohki ship form and through the shield of one landing ship, destroying it, only to drop the a bubble of water, she carried, right above it and disappeared again.

The three generals shuddered.

"We should be glad that Ryoko is on our side."

"And there were only four..." Arnolds noted." One in Sao Paolo and three in Pretoria."

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Ramsey crossed his arms as he glared at the plot. They had arrived in the Doranian Home system about ten minutes ago, going at Quantum 3 override. Now they cruised through the outer system and the passive systems looked and listened into the inner system of Dorani, or OGLE-TR-10 as it was known in Earth registries. Just last year a gravity lensing project had found out that this system had a planet, a Hot Jupiter. Ramsey knew that it had six, three additional terristric planets and a gas giant in the outer system with a huge number of moons.

The fourth planet was the home world of the Doranians.

Ramsey looked over to Bismark who knew more about the Doranians than anyone else on the ship, mainly because of his formers days as slave of this feline race.

"I never thought I would see this place again," Bismark said with his German accented English.

"Well," Ramsey said with a nod." I think we could show that how it is to be the one on the receiving end of orbital bombardment."

Bismark smiled a strange evil looking smile that somehow bordered into a sneer.

Ramsey didn't know what to think of Bismark at this moment, but he remembered that Bismark had survived more than six years of extremely hard slavery under the Doranians. After Bismark had read about the KZs of the Nazis and seen some movies, he had compared the condition of Doranian slavery with those of the Kzs.

For him this was at least part of his revenge.

Ramsey looked back at the image of the rotating Doranian home world above the plot. This could be a little problem. The world was about as large as Earth, but heavier with a resulting higher gravity. The planet didn't have many oceans, more like large inland lakes like the great lakes of North America or the Caspian Sea, making only about ten percent of the planet being covered by water. The rest was mostly covered by large forrests of one kind or the other and savannas.

"Maybe we should strike here..."

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The Meraakea Plateau was a large, more than two hundred kilometer diameter plateau surrounded by high mountains somewhere on the northern hemisphere if Doran, the Doranian home world. For the Doranians it was just one of their large protected hunting grounds where the high mountains prevented most prey from ever leaving, even if it were former slaves. In fact it was very popular for the Doranians of the surrounding lands as they could hunt here just with their own natural abilities.

They never had bothered with the geological specialties of their planet, nor with those of the Meraakea Plateau. It wasn't the way it was because of the Great First Protectors will, as Doranian religious doctrine thought to all Doranians. Nor where the large number of geysers, hot springs or the massive hot lake in the center of the Plateau.

Human geologists could have recognized the Plateau for what it was, much like they did with the Yellowstone Caldera. To them the Meraakea Plateau was one of the largest supervulcanos they had ever seen, even surpassing the La Garita Caldera in Colorado.

The Meraakea Caldera had been active some hundred thousand years ago, but the magma super chamber beneath it was still active and just waited for the right time to break out again.

But none of the about three hundred thousand Doranians living and hunting in the large Caldera knew or cared. Nor did they know about the fate that would befall them.

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Traffic above Doran was busy as ever. Trade and slaver ships arrived and left, Doranian Cruisers patrolled the gravitational system of the planet, all was perfectly in order and under the watchful eye of the Great First Protector.

It all changed.

It all changed when a singularity suddenly appeared right on top of one of the slaver stations. The singularity expanded and the quantum effects surrounding its edge simply shredded through the thin hull and the low powered shield protecting the station from orbital debris. The station broke into several parts as the structure was weakened and the rest was destroyed as a one kilometer diameter asteroid pummeled out of the singularity and down on the note even four hundred kilometer distant planet.

Behind the asteroid, the singularity simply closed and disappeared. The crews of Doranian Cruisers were shocked and panicked at the loss of the station and the sudden appearance of the asteroid and unable to do anything as it closed in on the Meraakea Caldera with more 15 kilometers per second and at a 45 degrees angle.

The dense rock of the asteroid began to break up at more at about fifty kilometer altitude and literally peppered the Meraakea Caldera with rock shrapnel as it impacted into the volcanic rock of the Caldera.

Normally an impact of this kind would have just left a large ten kilometer diameter crater, but the transient crater formed during the impact was deep enough to pierce about half of the distance to the magma chamber beneath.

Even through the impact had an energy of more than four thousand megatons TNT, it was the eruption of the Meraakea Caldera that was the real counter strike of Earth.


	29. Chapter 29

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 28

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"We have a problem," Admiral Kertal said as he entered Tenchi's office aboard _Dark_ _Knight_.

Tenchi had been busy with his paperwork, something he had been glad to be without for several years after 'leaving' Earth Force. Like writing detailed reports on combat actions of his ship or reading the reports of the ship in his fleet.

"A problem?" he asked and looked up from the report he was reading.

If it was what he thought what it was, the report on how many ammo _Fearless_ had used up would have to wait.

"The Doranians got reinforcements."

Tenchis eyes narrowed. The freighters they had used for 'pulling the Sheridan' two days ago had dropped a few Ferron recon drones. They were small things the Ferron Navy normally used to gather information about pirate installations, much like the Global Hawk Drones on Earth. And than there was also _Arcadia_ doing a snooping job, while hiding inside of an asteroid.

"How many?"

Kertal frowned.

"About the same number of ships we destroyed. Their invasion fleet seems to be on full strength again. And than there are also several ships that seem to be some sort of repair tender. And several other ships we couldn't identify yet."

Tenchi leaned back and closed his eyes.

"Damnit, I didn't think they would send reinforcements this fast. Especially after what happened to their homeworld."

The news from the Doranian home world had been intercepted by _Arcadia_, who had relayed it to the Task Force. But the way the Doranians had broadcast the news all around themselves, the Task Force had received the same information about an hour later.

The Doranian home world had been hit by an asteroid, falling from a strange object. The description and some blurred images had lead Tenchi and _Dark_ _Knight_, as well as the Ferrons to knowing that the asteroid had dropped from a Jump Point. Tenchi could imagine who had dropped it. There was only one ship with a jump drive operating in Doranian space. It was most likely intended to be some sort of Doolittle Run.

However Tenchi knew that Ramius, or rather Ramsey, hadn't intended to hit the place he had hit. A dormant Supervolcano six times the size of the island of Hawaii. And the impact had resulted in full eruption of the entire volcano. More than 62.000 square kilometers had erupted. And _Dark_ _Knight_ as well as Thorta, the Ferron planetary network, had run several simulations. That eruption had to set of a large number of cascading geological events.

They came to one and the same result. The Doranian homeworld was pretty much screwed and would fall into a very long volcanic winter. And Earth was very glad to have these news.

The same news had also told that a number of Doranian ships were going back to the homeworld for relieve operations. So the reinforcements were a huge surprise.

Than he looked back up again.

"Do you think they could have found the Quantum-40 deposits on Gol?"

Kertal twitched a little and his skin changed to a pale blue color.

"If they did..."

"...they would try to get their hands on it," Tenchi said." Selling high quality Quantum-40 on the galactic market would get them very good financial help for their homeworld and they would get back on their feet much faster."

Kertal breathed in deep.

"On the other hand they wouldn't try to get their feet deeper into the system as they would need to defend Gol on all costs. That would get us some breathing space."

Tenchi nodded.

"More than enough fortify the planets. Any news about the GOD and missile pod ideas _Dark_ _Knight_ gave you?"

Kertal nodded.

"Several companies are currently designing global defense platforms. Thorta thinks that we can get the first designs by the end of the week and build the first platforms in about three weeks. As for the Pods. They are not a problem to build so we get the first pods in about two, three days at most. The Admirality also ordered priority build order for the two Orpheus and four Hyperions currently in queue. As well as the construction of more Hyperion and Saggitarius class ships."

Tenchi sighed.

"Lets hope that it will help us."

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Macuso shook his head as he read Ramseys report. He could really see his old/new friend standing there, saying "Whoops..." while his face showed one of those big shit eating grins. But that again he could see half of the Boomer commanders doing the same.

From the information and some pretty accurate if about 50.000 year old data on the planet of Doran in Nathans memory banks, the lunar computer had made several simulations. The result was apocalyptic, at least for the Doranians.

Nathan had shown the simulation to the President, the Joint Chiefs and several others. Macuso could still remember the computer generated images.

The asteroid had burrowed itself at least six kilometers into the volcanic rock above the supervolcano and the shock waves of the impact had resulted in an eruption. But not only that. The volcano was sitting on a long chain of other, normal sized volcanoes and a geologic vault line like the San Andreas Vault. The eruption and the shock waves of the impact would cause massive earthquakes if 9 and above along the vault line and the eruption of many more volcanoes, some of them at least of Krakatoa or Thera strength.

The amount of dust and ash kicked into the atmosphere was going to be in the ten thousand cubic kilometers, of not hundred thousands. It would send the whole planet into a more than two hundred year long volcanic winter. And if the technological informations were correct, the Doranians would only be able to shorten this time period by about a hundred maybe a hundred and twenty years with their scrubbers.

The whole thing was the equivalent of the asteroid impact that had killed of the dinosaurs on Earth.

It was unfortunate that the Doranians had been hit like that, but inevitable. Even the Asteroid Impact alone would have been a local killer. It had been an idea of a Senator anyway. He had argued that if Earth bombarded the Doranians, they should drop something really big on them, like an asteroid.

So the whole bombardment thing was an official order backed by the President, the Senate and the Joint Chiefs, as well as a good number of other governments.

It was nice to see how about 50 percent of Earth came together to support this while the UN was still debating about the future of Earth Defense. Slowly but surely the UN became more and more of a joke in and off itself.

The good news however where that the Doranians pulled a good number of their ships to their home world to help. Either evacuating or otherwise helping. But if the spooks of the CIA had worked correctly, the Doranians would be much to proud to just pack up and leave Doran en masse. Most of the population would remain on the planet, about five percent of the whole Doranian population in the whole Protectorate.

With the recall of ships from just about everywhere, the Doranians couldn't hold their current attacks on Earth and Vega. So both Earth and Vega had some breathing space. It allowed to complete defenses and to build new ships. But even than Earth would need at least a month until the first Monsoons could be build on the planet itself. At least the Mobile Ship Yard could help in that direction.

Both were now docked with a Near Earth Asteroid, 3753 Cruithne, and were currently busy to eat themselves into its surface and core for raw materials, before they would start producing. Each had three slips available, each able to build ships up to the size of Olympus. However, according to some of the engineers, Earth Force ships were designed to be 'superbuild', just like the large wet navy ships and the slips were also capable of 'superbuilding'. Large components that could be build separate and than put together like a large three dimensional puzzle.

The plans were currently the way that one slip of each Ship Yard would be set to 'self replicating' and build a complete copy of the Ship Yard in about three month, thanks to the plans the Ferrons had included. So they would have four shipyards in three month, with each of the Yards having one slip for self replicating, eight in six month, sixteen in nine month and thirty two in a year.

Further the plans called for half of the slips not used for self replicating to be used for super building ships, while the other half would build Monsoon and Olympus class vessels. And two Monsoons could be build in each slip.

And if Nathan had brought all his industrial capacity back online in about six month, he would be able to build ships too. It would certainly help Earth Defense to grow.

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Usagi didn't really know what to think. The last two weeks had changed parts of her. She knew that she had become much more introspective and began to ask herself if this was the cause of Crystal Toyko. Somehow she doubted it. Mostly because of the sudden change of Setsuna.

At 'First Impact' she had panicked and didn't know what was happening, as if something was changing the 'timeline' as Ami had put it. Than there was Setsunas pregnant future self that had popped up, followed a week later by her present self with this whole glow of 'I just got LAYED' around her and the request to go to a certain shrine in the Okayama prefecture.

A shrine the eight Senshi were currently not able to reach, at least not with the sheer number of foreign protesters, police and strange floating wooden logs around.

Ami looked down on her Mercury Computer, a thing that looked much like a fancy PDA, and than back up.

"Are you really sure that this is the place?" Haruka asked and placed an elbow on a nearly tree.

"We are," Ami answered with a nod and looked up to a shrine that was nestled between the trees and into a hill." This is the shrine, Setsuna told us to come to."

"A pitty that it is the Jurian Embassy... What about those logs?"

Ami looked at her computer again and made a scan of one log, a scan that was promptly blocked by the log, some thing that hadn't happened before. The log turned and hovered of the ground only to come towards them.

"Please refer to not scanning me," the log said with a surprisingly pleasant voice." I take it that you are the 'mages', we were told about."

The Sensi looked at each other. When taking their magical attacks and such, they were 'mages', somehow at least.

"Uhm... Yes?" Usagi tried and looked vary at the log.

The blue eye of the log went over them for a moment. Than it turned around.

"We awaited you earlier. Oh well. Please follow me."

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Yosho had a problem. Two actually.

One of the problems was pretty obvious, Ayeka. He still had problems to understand just what had caused her to this strange fit of rage two days ago. Funaho had felt it and informed him about it and G'Kar had later told him what she had done and said.

All he knew was that Ayeka didn't really behave like she normally would behave. He was tempted to just think that it were late problems with the Vogon poetry, but he didn't really buy that himself. Something was wrong.

He had called Jurai because of that and was still waiting for the back call. Hopefully his father would send a ship and maybe a shrink or two.

The other problem was Sairyo. The man was getting more and more restless since he had watched how the US Armed Forces had reduced a complete Doranian invasion force to kindlings and a group of kittens with weaponry that was considered obsolete and cruel by the rest of the galaxy. Other reasons were that Ryoko had helped contain the invasion in Sao Paolo and Pretoria, with Ryo-Ohki destroying the landing ships and the fact that the Russians hadn't even fought but bombed the Doranians to kingdom come.

And lately the news of the 'Doolittle Run' on Doran and its effects. CNN had a very intense new cover about the whole thing and recently there had been an image of the new and improved Ramsey/Ramius on a shot interview via tachyon link, as the Earth Force technology was used, not the subcom of the galaxy.

Ramsey's answer to the question about the 'side effects' of his bombardment, he had used an asteroid of all things, had been a big shit eating grin and a "Whoops...". To Yosho it was the kind of reaction one would get from the former commander of a Boomer, who had the power to launch his nuclear missiles every time when he wanted to. In a sense these people were like the crew of the Enola Gay to him.

While the galaxy had its fair share of people who issued commands of orbital bombardments, he doubted that anyone had the stomach or the nerve to pull the 'Whoops' bit of themselves. But Yosho was quite used to the scale of extremes Earth humans were capable of and he didn't doubt that he himself had the same nerve, being half Earth human himself.

Yosho had had to prevent Sairyo several times from just calling Jurai about this. Jurai didn't need to know, yet anyway.

"Yosho," he suddenly heard the voice of one of the log guardians behind him." The 'mages' have arrived."

He turned around and looked at the log and eight young girls, through one of them was difficult to identify as girl.

"You can leave us now," he said to the log and smiled at he girls." Please come in and sit down."

The girls nodded and took off their shoes, as the log left the room. Yosho looked at the girls and scratched his chin a little. They way one of them moved and respected the shrine, he could tell that she was either practicing shinto, was part of a family with a family member with a shrine or a shrine maiden herself. He filed that away for later.

"So, you are the Sailor Senshi," he finally said as the girl sat opposite to him and sipped on his tea.

The girls didn't seem to be all that surprised at this, but the tomboyish blond was trying very hard to control her temper.

"Yes, they are," he than heard the voice of Setsuna (or was that Pluto?) from the opposite door.

He wasn't really surprised about this as he had expected this. The girls on the other side looked like they were close to having a heard attack.

"You should think that they would have gotten used to this by now," Setsuna said and entered the room to sit down between Yosho and the girls.

The girls stared at her for a longer time and the tomboyish blond seemed to drool ever so slightly, at least before getting an elbow into her rips by the other older girl next to her. Yosho just raised an eyebrow. Setsuna was dressed in a stylish dark green and black version of the body suit Tenchi's XO was wearing.

"I see that you enjoy your freedom of these 'geas'," Yosho said and Setsuna grinned in response.

"Of cause I do and my other self had showed me how sexy I look i tight leather."

"I second that," the blond said and got another elbow into her side.

Yosho nodded.

"Well, lets get to business," he said." I know pretty much why you have called the other Senshi here. I think they now want to know why."

Setsuna grinned a little.

"Nothing short of saving the world," she said into the direction of the girls.

"Again?" The black haired one asked and sighed." Didn't we get over that stage after Galaxia?"

Yosho blinked. Galaxia? Wasn't that this rouge Technomage? She had went through a good part of the galaxy, but never actually crossing into either Union or Federation territory, only praying on the underdeveloped sub-Quantum 0 worlds for countless millenia. There wasn't very much know about her. Even the Technomages of the Council had failed to stop her.

"Its a little bigger this time. Say, what do you know about Technomagic?"

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"Slipstream event!"

Admiral Daisuke Kawasuchi of the Japanese Space Self-Defense Force sighed. At the moment he was CIC on the watch of Earth Global Defense Center. Or however they called it today. There wasn't anything scheduled, but than again no slipstream event in the past days was.

"ID?" he asked.

This was getting a little crowded for his taste, but than again Earth orbit was very near to become extremely crowded anyway. At least the ships not of the fleet were securely docked with Shabazza, with the Centauri Vorchan very far away from the Ferron freighter, frigates and warships.

"Its a Th'Nor class Cruiser, sir."

Kawasuchi raised an eyebrow.

"GOD sat firing."

Kawasuchi watched as the Particle Beam of the GOD cannon missed the bow of the Th'Nor by a few kilometers.

"This is Earth Global Defense Center Shabazza to unknown Narn vessel," he could hear Shabazza broadcast over the radio." Identify yourself and state your business. You have one minute to comply."

He and the other admirals had come to the result that this was maybe the best way to deal with other races for the time being. Best show a little strength and they could become another Doranian problem. And Earth couldn't use another war with another race. However he felt with the shocked Narn a little.

"This is the Narn Cruiser _Nr'Ell_, Captain N'Tal," the answer came very fast." We are on a diplomatic mission. We are to support Ambassador G'Kar."

Again it was Shabazza who answered.

"That you for your compliance, _Nr'Ell_. I'm sorry that we were forced to fire upon you, but we are a little paranoid at this moment. A Doranian Invasion Fleet attacked us two days ago. You will receive nav points in Galactic Standard that will lead you to one of my docking ports."

"I hope far away from the Centauri," Kawasuchi muttered under his breath.


	30. Chapter 30

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 29 (parts written by Reikson over at he Maximum Addventure)

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In the Minbari embassy headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, Delenn of Mir, former Grey Council Satai of the Minbari's religious caste, sat down heavily in her chair, while Neroon fumed beside her.

Only minutes ago, the human news network known as CNN had reported that the world known as Doran Prime, also known as the Doranian homeworld, had experienced what the humans had dubbed 'a taste of their own medicine.'

Apparently, what they meant by that phrase was the fact that a spy ship had ensnared a gargantuan asteroid, and then sent it careening into the surface of Doran Prime, in retaliation for the mass-driver bombardment, executed by the Doranians, on Earth only about two weeks ago. What the Earther human in charge of said spy ship had said they hadn't expected was the fact that the asteroid, by some random stroke of luck, impacted squarely upon a massive tectonic vault that was liberally studded with volcanoes and supervolcanoes.

Delenn had belatedly taken in the simulations, performed on screen by CNN, of the results of the complications. The asteroid impact itself had managed to burrow itself, six kilometers deep, directly into the crust of Doran Prime, exposing a massive magma chamber that had promptly erupted. The seismic activity caused by the impact also induced a series of massive earthquakes, and would cause the other volcanoes and supervolcanoes along the fault line to erupt as well.

There, she learned of the term 'volcanic winter.' The massive amount of dust and ash thrown up by the constant volcanic activity would remain in the atmosphere of Doran Prime for over two hundred Earth years, blocking life-giving sunlight from reaching the planet's surface, and also causing worldwide temperatures to plummet.

She took in the reaction of the spy ship's commanding officer when he'd heard of the additional reaction that his bombardment of Doran Prime had wrought. Delenn had to wonder at the sheer gall of the human, when he'd smiled broadly and said, in a deadpan voice, a single word: "Whoops."

Beside a now-sitting Delenn, Neroon fumed over what he considered was the biggest offense to the entirety of the known galaxy; the continued existence of the defiant, and admittedly-innovative, Earther humans.

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Londo Mollari, Earth's ambassador of the Centauri Republic, could not believe what he had learned. Not only were the Juraians keeping a constant interest in Earth, but the Minbari were expressing their interests. With the Narn already having a presence here, Londo just knew that it was only a matter of time before the various members of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds also began sending diplomatic envoys to Earth.

It was just a matter of time.

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Former member of the Narn Regime's Kha'ri, First Citizen G'Kar pored over his copy of the Book of G'Quan. The way that the shadows seemed to have come alive around the Juraian Princess Ayeka, as he'd seen earlier, when combined with his memories of Dark Knight's unexpected weapons strike against that...thing that had screamed so loudly in his mind, had managed to strike a chord of memory, one that had him scrambling for his copy of the Book of G'Quan.

Only moments later, he sat back in his chair, stunned. There, on one of the Book's pages, was an inked image of the thing that Commodore Masaki's ship, Dark Knight, had destroyed a few days ago. G'Kar was no fool. Obviously, Commodore Masaki knew about these mysterious creatures, enough to destroy one of their warships.

Now, questions was left in his mind.

How was he supposed to speak to the Commodore, when the tachyon-based and quantum-slipstream communications systems were being highly monitored by Shabazza? And what was he going to do? Should he tell Yosho? He really had no idea just what exactly he was going to have to do next, and he hated that.

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"... were able to put down the islam fundamentalist coups lead by one of Al Quaeda's top terrorists Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. Only the timely intervention of government loyal toops was able to prevent the Saudi Arabian government to become a Islam Fundamentalist Nation..."

zap

"... Allied Tropps took the city of Kabul after six days of urban combat. With the fall of Kabul many high ranking members of the Taliban regime fled into the mountains of Afganistan. Experts believe that the Taliban resistance will remain even with the taking of Kabul and many of the Afghanistan cities..."

zap

"... demands by Saudi Arabia. However the removal of all aliens and alien technology from Earth to the 8th October is very unlikely. Not only would this lead to the loss of the only defense Earth has against new Doranian attack, but would also hinder the rebuilding of areas destroyed during 'First Impact'. Especially since there are several Ferron fusion reactors currently in service in several first and second world countries. However, the Saudi Arabian government demonstrated their intention quite clear, when they destroyed the Ferron fusion reactor that had been build up in Jeddah..."

zap

"... demanded that all American troops to immediately leave the country. This is the immidiate reaction of the Saudi Arabian governments to the refusal of the space faring nations to destroy all alien technologies and remove all aliens from the face of Earth. At the same time they renewed their demands and threatened to stop all oil deliveries should their demands not be heard until the 15th October..."

zap

"...announced the release of more than ten thousand of the 'Washuu Speed Schooler 5000' to the 12th of October in many universities of the stable democratic nations of Earth..."

zap

"... were stopped by OPEC as reaction to the failure to comply to the Saudi Arabian demands. At the same time Venezuela and Nigeria announced their leaving of OPEC. However experts believe that it is only a matter of time until the oil reserves of the industrialized nations will be consumed and that the existing oil fields not under OPEC control wont be able to satisfy the demands of the industrialized nations..."

zap

"...could be very likely that even through government loyal troops stopped the fundamentalist coups that several of the new ministers and the new Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia might be influenced by the fundamentalists who also demand the removal of all alien technology from Earth..."

zap

"... _Pernambuco_ and_ SAS Adam Kok _are the last ships build by Washuu and delivered to the Brazilian and South African Navies. Both ships are Monsoon class gunboat. However, none of these ships are the last ships. The two former Ferron Mobile Ship Yards, _San_ _Diego_ and _Exeter_, have pulled their host asteroid 3753 Cruithne into a stable orbit around Earth situated in the Lagrage Point L5. Both ship yards are currently building a pair of Monsoon Missile Carriers and two Pegasus Patrol Cutters, as well as a pair of new Mobile Ship Yards. According to the Pentagon, the Monsoons will be finished by the 25th October, while the Pegasus will be finished around the 5th November..."

zap

"...since the introduction of the 'Washuu Speed Schooler 5000'. However every of these more than thirty million people have found new jobs in the rapidly growing new industries. Germany, France, Britian and the United States have announced that the number of jobless have dropped down to only a few hundred thousand in the last month, most of those finding jobs in one of the numerous new companies that grow all around Earth even more rapidly than during the 'IT craze'..."

zap

"...no one knows. However the Northern Korean Scud missile, armed with a nuclear warhead was intercepted by the South Korean Monsoon gunboat ROKS Eulji Munduck before it could reach Seoul. The Government of South Korea sees this as break of the armistice of 1953 and announced that they will defend themselves..."

zap

"...at this 14th November 2004.Even two month after the hearing of Commodore Masaki the UN is still meeting about the organization of a Earth Defense Force. However, the Ambassadors to the UN of the United States, the European Union, Russia and all other space faring nations have not appeared to the general meeting today. Several rumors say that they are talking among each other, but none of these can be confirmed..."

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"Well, it certainly is one hell of an ugly mother," Sergeant Cores muttered as he looked up the hull of _RFA_ _Fort_ _Austin_, the British Monsoon class freighter.

"Just don't let the Brits hear you, Sarge," Corporal Miller said from the side." We should be glad than there is anyone who is willing to pull of this one."

Cores snorted as he watched how two Abrams, both of them the new M1A3, a single Sheridan, the new A4 variant, and a number of LAVs, M99 HMMVW and KLR 2250 were loaded into the Monsoon.

The large Marine Sergeant chuckled and shook his head.

"It seems they are just insane enough to do this. Just like us."

Miller chuckled.

"Well, we are making history, Sarge. The first off planet mission for the Marine Corps. If we survive this we're gonna be heroes."

Cores gave Miller a short glare.

"I still don't really know how we are gonna get supplies. Okay the vehicles don't need feel anymore thanks to these reactor things. But we still need ammo."

"Maybe its these cage things they build in three of the LAVs. I heard them tell them 'Transmitters'."

Cores shook his head again.

"Well, we are going to see what happens."

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Tenchi sighed. This would be the largest offensive mission against Rustoner and Gol since the probing attack seven weeks ago. But only now the colonized planets of Vega were adequately protected. The Ferrons did have quite some industrial capacity and had chunked out a large number of small, but powerful Global Defense Satellites, not to mention the fact that they had finished building two Orpheus and four Hyperion class ships. And they had managed to build enough shields and slipstream drives to outfit their large units.

And Earth would send a few more ships to Vega in the next two days. Five Ancients, a Lupo, two Vigilantes, two Monsoon gunboats and two Monsoon AEGIS vessels. And than there was _RFA_ _Fort_ _Austin_, who would come to land a Marine Corps Expedition Unit on Rustoner to cause some trouble.

The whole attack on Rustoner was geared towards that, leaving the _Fort_ _Austin_ enough time to land, drop the Marines and get the hell away. Especially since the Doranians had used the seven weeks to fortify Rustoner so what and had indeed gotten a few reinforcements, even with the massive problems with their home world.

Another part of the attack was to land several freighters on Gol itself and the Ferron Mining Camp there. There was only a little number of freighters that could land on the surface and survive the sheer pressure and gravity long enough to get to the sub planetary mine. The freighters would bring weapons, specially designed to operate in the thick methane-hydrogen atmosphere, and supplies for at least half a year. If they were fast enough they could maybe leave Gol with a load of Quantum-40, or CV Embininum as it was known in the galaxy.

Tenchi chuckled a little. Gol was not very kind to the Doranians. While the Ferrons respected the planet and worked with it to get its wealth in Quantum-40, the Doranians tried to brute force approach. The sporadic news from the mine on Gol had talked about several attempts of Doranian ships to land on the surface, but the pressure of the atmosphere was so high that even the Quantum 2 shields of the landing ships had failed against the Mach 15 hurricanes and the sheer pressure and had imploded more than two thousand kilometers above the surface.

And than there was also a strange life form that could be found on Gol. The Ferrons called them 'Ghosts of Gol', creatures made of energy, living of the huge amounts of electricity created by the storms of Gol. However, they were also interested in all other kinds of energy and could siphon a reactor dry in moments. The Ferrons had found a way to keep them away from the mine. They had simply build several very powerful reactors away from the mine and the 'Ghosts' ate the energy from these raactors keeping away from the mine. Some sort of silent agreement.

The Doranians however... If they ever managed to land on Rustoner, they would have to deal with the 'Ghosts' and no known weapons would be very useful against them, but would rather attract them to the very delicious Doranian reactors.

Either way, the Doranians would find out that Gol was maybe a number to big for them. Even the Ferrons had needed decades to land on the planet and build up the mine.

His throughts went back to the Marines mission on Rustoner. They would hopefully case much problems on that moon of Gol. The moon was covered by tundra and dense forests of conifer like trees. The climate could be best compared to deep Siberia or Alaska on Earth, so the Marines had much space to hide between their attacks on Doranian encampments and Landing ships.

The plan might have been a problem, but than the Ferrons showed their transmitters to the Joint Chiefs. The cage like constructions were able to transport people and equipment from one transmitter to another. And now several of the Marine vehicles were equipped with Transmitters to get supplies to the Marines, mostly Ammo and other things.

Tenchi knew that Washuu had been very surprised when she had seen the transmitters. She had said that they were inferior to the Transporters utilized by a large number of the galactic civilizations. For example the Transmitters needed a Transmitter on the other end to even transfer any object, and couldn't just Star Trek 'beam' a person.

However, she had also spoken of several things were the Transmitters were superior to the Transporters. They had a much better reception and accidents like they happened with Transporters were nearly unheard of. And they needed much lower amounts of energy to transport an object over a similar distance between any two points of space.

As far as he knew, she was currently trying to build a better version of the Ferron Transmitter.

"Sir," an ensign said as he opened the door to Tenchi's office." Task Force 2 has just left Earth and is on their way here.

Tenchi nodded.

"Thank you, Please notify me when they approach the system."

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Bismark breathed in deep and looked at the holoscreen with a strange far away look on his face. Ramsey glanced over to him and chuckled.

"Yes, she has this effect on people," he said and looked at the blue white brown marble hanging in the center of the hologram." Maybe a little more for you."

Bismark closed his eyes.

"I never quite imagined that she is this beautiful from up here."

This time a good of the command crew of _Nautilus_ chuckled also, while Bismark closed his eyes.

"She's much more beautiful from orbit."

Bismark nodded and continued to look at the hologram of Earth. Ramsey smiled.

The last seven weeks had been busy for the crew of Nautilus. They had scouted more than fifty different systems and dropped sensory drones in half of them. Than there was the assault on Droran, the Doranian homeworld. The following two days of surveillance of the system had added more than two thousand individual energy signatures of Doranian warships to the warship catalog. And the drone they had left in Dorani was still sending new energy signatures to _Nautilus_ every day in a tachyon burst transmission.

The first mission of _Nautilus_ was a success. The concept of the 'space submarine' has proven itself and they had gathered very valuable informations over Patrol Activity, Fleet Strength and status of various systems of the Doranians. Not to mention a catalog of more than thirty thousand military and civilian Doranian ships and very useful specs o the various ship classes.

Nautilus hadn't only dropped the asteroid on Doran, but also intercepted ten Patrol Fleets, some of them consisting of several Cruisers and Dreadnoughts, as well as twelve convoys. That brought the kill list of Nautilus up to 35 Doranian Cruisers and 14 Dreadnoughts as well as more than fifty million tons of freight capacity. Not to mention the freeing of some slaves, including Joachim Fürst von Bismark, grand-son of Otto Fürst von Bismark, who had united Germany during the 19th century. And of cause five Doranian slavers, standing under constant surveillance, not because they could fleet, but rather to save them from the wrath of the former slaves, the Shin'bi being the prime concern, since they were 'Ninja Dragons' as one of the crew had called them.

Ramsey glanced over to another hologram. The display showed the surrounding space and he couldn't help but whistle a little. There was an asteroid floating in L5, with something attached to it and accompanied by a pair of Dyson Trees, something that looked like an Earth Force Jump Gate floating in L4 also accompanied by a pair of Dyson Trees. And a fleet that was larger then when _Nautilus_ had left.

He suddenly had to grin. He had planned this ever since they had left Earth.

"Break EMCON and let them know that we are here."

He could see a number of grinning faces like his own. Nautilus had been here for the last five hours, slowly drifting into the Earth Moon gravitational system under full EMCON. These Event Absorbers of Washuu really worked great in supressing the Slipstream event a ship created when leaving Quantum Slipstream.

Now Nautilus dropped EMCON and started to emit all kinds of sensory noise and other emissions that could be received and used for detection. One of them was a standard Earth Force IFF transponder.

"We are getting hailed by Shabazza."

Ramsey smiled again and nodded.

"Did you try to give everyone a heart attack, Ramsey?" the face of an angry Admiral Robby Jackson asked.

"Something like that," Ramsey answered." Through Mostly I wanted to show how easy my job really is."

He grinned into Jacksons face as he heard a few laughter from around Jackson.

"Permission to dock with Shabazza."

Jackson glared at Ramsey.

"You got the Permission. But find your own docking port. Jackson out."

This caused many of the command crew to laugh out loud.

"Home, sweet home," Ramsey said with an even wider grin.


	31. Chapter 31

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 30

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The job of _JDS_ _Yugiri_ was pretty easy, all thing considered. The first of the Pegasus Partol Cutters build by _Exeter_ was doing the job it was designed for. It was on a patrol. However, _Yugiri_ was more than just patrolling, part of her job was to fly through the Corian Expanse, trying to find any planet that might have survived the 'Great War' 25.000 years ago, or at least any planet that could be useful for colonization attempts. Any mining base or even pirate base would be an added bonus.

Having been in space for the last week, _Yugiri_ hasn't gone very far, up until now she had only visited about five solar systems, its sensors taking in any reading on the four systems. And her current flight path wasn't the best one anyway, the commander was more trying to look at any system that might have habitable planets anyway, rather than looking at each system.

So _Yugiri_ was now approaching Epsilon Eridani, and its solar system. Epsilon Eridani was a orange dwarf and according to the files Nathan had, it used to have a single planet supporting life in an orbit of 0.52 AU distance to the sun, as well as a pair of Gas Giants and a dust disk that was pretty much like Sols Kuiper Belt. This Epsilon Eridani system was different to the one of Dark Knight home universe.

"Leaving Slipstream in five seconds."

Captain Yoshi Masaki nodded and watched the holographic screen as he stood in the center of the command center of _Yugiri_ like an unmovable object. Parts of him wanted to emulate the Samurai his ancestors had been.

However, ever since his families shrine had become the Jurian Embassy on Earth he wasn't completely sure about that one. It had brought forth questions about his family and himself. And than there was the son of his cousin Kiyone, Tenchi. It was hard to understand how he had become the way he was now, how he had gotten command of Dark Knight and what had happened in the time since the death of his cousin.

"We have left Slipstream," he was interrupted in his thoughts." Numerous unknown contacts in orbit around Eridani Alpha."

Masaki looked up and at the screen. Eridani Alpha was the name of the first planet of Epsilon Eridani, or at least the name Earth astronomers had given to it. According to Nathan it used to be a planet supporting life, at least until the end of the 'Great War'.

"We are getting painted by several targeting systems," another tech said.

"No actions that could be interpreted a hostile," he ordered." But keep shields and interceptors on standby."

"We got optical."

"On screen."

The holographic display changed from showing free space to showing a number of deep green colored ships with a flat bow shaped a little like the head of an arrow.

"Sensors are also picking up large scale EM activity on Eridani Alphas surface."

"Anything else?"

The tech nodded.

"The planets atmosphere appears to have burned away on a large scale, the density is similar to Mars, through with about twenty percent oxygen. There are several green spot on the day side, seem to be some minor plant life."

Masaki looked back at the screen. The green ships were coming closer towards _Yugiri_.

"Tactical overlay," he ordered and the display changed slightly.

Transparent blue-green bubbles appeared around the ships, indicating their shields, while numbers displayed the shield strength. Blobs of red appeared along the bow of the ships and on several other parts of the hulls, showing the position of weapon mounts, using the EM fields of the energy that was feed into the weapons.

"Positive ID," one of the techs suddenly said." Ships identified as Dilgar ships. One Mishakur Dreadnaught and several Targrath Strike Cruisers."

"We are being hailed."

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CERN was one of Earth's largest collection of scientific minds, all of them trying to find the answers to one question. What is the universe?

Located in both Switzerland and France, it was one of the best displays of work between nations.

For Washuu, CERN and the work atmosphere in the institute was one reason why she had left Edwards for this place. Here she had a much better look at how human scientists worked and discovered new things. She could see them 'brainstorming', as the humans called, just about everywhere. Be it in the restaurants, the streets or the parks.

She could very much understand why the scientific community of Earth wanted to build the Terran Institute of Technology TIT here, right next to CERN. She was one of the initiators of the TIT and had been very surprised to hear that quite a few very wealthy people had decided to help setting up the TIT and keep it more or less in private hand. Bill Gates for example, the richest man on Earth, had given 500 million Dollar to the TIT fund he had created himself to set up the TIT. Several architects were already working on buildings while some local construction companies were busy to build up the right infrastructure for the TIT.

One of the first things the TIT committee had bought was one of the Ferron fusion reactors and they had already set it up close to the CERN. Than they had bought more than five square kilometers of land close to the TIT and were setting up some basic buildings like a firedepartment.

She smiled a little as she looked up from her work. She really liked the way the scientists were working here. It was so much different to the atmosphere in the Academy. And the best was that no one had any problem with her, they were all used to the quicks of several other scientists and just about everyone called her Washuu-chan after insisting on it.

"How about something like this?"

Washuu raised an eyebrow at the black and white drawing in a small booklet that had landed over the particle focus she had worked on and looked up. Marek Koslowski looked at her with a smug smile. Marek was one of the two scientists who had become something like her assistants since she began to work at CERN.

"And what is that?"

"The drawing of a Portal Transmitter," Marek noted." As opposing to the Ferron Cage Transmitter."

She glanced at the drawing and the way it was drawn. It was more of a cross section than anything else. The text next to the drawing was German. It was an interesting thing to look at.

"And?"

"Its from a German science fiction series, Perry Rhodan. They are using Portal Transmitters there since the early days of the series. Kind of like the Ferron Transmitters, just without the cage. You walk into the portal and step out on the other side. I thought it might help with the further development of the transmitter."

Washuu sat up and looked at Marek, before taking the booklet. She looked at the drawing for several moments while her thoughts tried to come up with an answer to his suggestion. The longer she thought about it, the more she thought it was possible.

"Instead of using a mobile scanner/dematerializer that takes apart the object inside the cage," Marek said," we could use a fixed one and move the object."

She looked at him again.

"Marek?"

"Yes, Washuu-chan?"

"It could work. Lets..."

She wanted to say more, but she noted that Marek looked past her and turned around. A man, dressed in a smart suit was leaning in the door frame and grinned at her. She blinked a few times before grinning back.

"So, Mr. Bond. We meet again..."

The man laughed out loud.

"I see you have watched the Connery Bond movies."

Marek blinked a few times. It was true, the man leaning in the door frame was looking very much like a young Sean Connery.

"Good to see you again, Marco."

"Likewise, Wasuu."

Than the man grinned again.

"I have missed your examinations..."

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Everything was ready.

Admiral Kertal was standing at the plot of _Red_ _Palace_' Combat Information Center, looking at the holographic images of the plot showed, coming straight from the sensory drones that had kept close surveillance over Rustoner and Gol for the last weeks. The situation had gotten worse.

The Doranians had pulled a small asteroid into orbit over Rustoner and if the information were correct had converted it into weapon platform, an orbital fortress. Bu that wasn't all. Several dozen smaller orbital platforms had been placed around Rustoner, weapon platforms without a doubt. And they had pulled more than five hundred ships to Rustoner, a hundred of them Dreadnoughts.

It were the Dreadnoughts that were the largest problem. Those ships were more than four kilometers in diameter. From the information _Arcadia_ had collected with its sensors and the two AEGIS Monsoons _Firefinder_ and _Spitfire_ with their much more powerful AEGIS systems about sixty percent of the volume were reactors, feeing into their shields and their weapons, anti-proton beam, Ion and Plasma bolt weapons. Most of those weapons were concentrated on the frontal arc, with only a few covering all other arcs.

"All ships report as battle ready," an aide said and Kertal nodded.

"What about the Terrans?"

"'Ready to kick ass,' to quote Commodore Masaki."

Kertal smiled. He was really beginning to like that pale Earthling. He had much more experience in space battles like the one that would come up and so he had the large scale command over the combined fleet. However, Kertal would remain in command over his own fleet of one Tillman, two Orpheus, seven Hyperions, including the repaired Maru and a twenty frigates and a number of older corvettes and gunboats.

While most of his ships were shielded and had slipstream, the frigates, corvettes and gunboats were intended as 'cannonfodder' as Masaki had put it. Most of them had been pulled from storage and had been refitted with an AI control system that would 'kamikaze' on the Doranians and detonate a heavy gravitic warhead should the ship be to heavily damaged to fight. Should that happen to any other ship, they would jump to slipstream and leave for the staging area of the fleet at Lossoshér the 12th planet of Vega.

The fleet would come onto the Doranians like a pack of Zerkals on an unsuspecting Kur.

"I want a full illumination of the Doranian fleet," he said and one of the operators in CIC was following his orders.

Back in normal space, six of eight drones had closed in on Rustoner to about a million kilometers. As the signal came, they activated their high powered active sensory arrays and began to illuminate the Doranian fleet from all six spacial angles.

"Jump Drive Status?"

"A jump ships report one hundred percent."

"Execute Jump."

At his orders twenty three ships opened jump portals about ten thousand kilometers away from the Doranian fleet. This time they would play to get as many Doranians as possible, but rather for delaying them, preventing them to see what happened behind their backs. Any Doranian loss would be good through.

About three second later the Joint Fleet was floating in free space, ready for battle. One Tillmann, one Warlock hybrid, seven Ancients, Two Orpheus, two Lupos, two Vigilantes, seven Hyperions, six Monsoon gunboats, twenty AI frigates and a good number AI corvettes and gunboats. And than there was the large number of Thunderbolt and Ferron Tiger Starfuries that would add their own weapons to the mix, trying to take down the Doranian weapon platforms in orbit.

The display in front of Kertal changed. The Doranians were reacting a little sluggish to the full illumination and the sudden appearance of the Joint Fleet. Cruisers and Dreadnoughts were beginning to turn towards the fleet as the heavy weapons of the Fleet spoke.

Long ranged optical laser, particle and heavy gravitic beams stood between the Fleet and the Doranians and where the weapons touched a target, they destroyed a Doranian cruiser, and letting it fade from the display.

"Concentrate fire on the Dreadnoughts. I want a few of them exploding before they get into range."

On the display Red Palace changed alignment as her four super heavy gravitic cannons were unmovable spinal mounts. The firing sequence of the gravitic cannons was easy. They would fire one after the other, each firing for a second before the next fired, than they needed to recharge for thirty seconds.

As the first Dreadnought faded from the hologram, Kertal smiled.

"Phase two initiated," one of the operators said and Kertal nodded.

On the display he saw how the small and fast ships, frigates, corvettes, gunboats and Monsoons charged forwards, the Starfuries not much behind the extremely fast Ferron gunboats. Missiles detached from their carriers and speed out of launch tubes, each of them exceeding the fast ships in acceleration.

Than the rest of the fleet moved from its former position, not stopping the long ranged fire.

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Commander Doran Zarek narrowed his eyes. The _Maru_ was now more or less considered to be part of the Ferron Navy as the humans hadn't made a move to retake her. He was glad for that, the _Maru_ had become his ship and he was proud to be her captain. In the weeks since his ship had come back from Earth, she had been repaired. Her weapons and her reactors had been upgraded to meet the Ferron Hyperion Specs, but she mostly remained the same, meaning that there wasn't any artificial gravity, safe for the two fly wheels in the center of the ship. And the shield was sent by the goddesses.

"We just got order for Phase two," his com tech said and Zarek couldn't help but smile.

"Its payback time," he said." Fire missiles on predefined targets."

A slight shudder went through the ship as the missiles detached from their former docking places along the dorsal hull and speed towards the enemy lines. They were closely followed by more missiles fired from the internal launchers of the old Earth Force Hyperion.

"I never understood why High Command crossed the internal launchers from the design," he heard his tactical officer say and grinned a little.

"You know the Zeros in High Command. All they want to see are really big guns."

"Don't we all commander?"

Zarek chuckled a little.

"Full speed ahead. I want some solid targeting solutions."

Zarek looked back at his screen. It showed how the _Maru's_ missiles flew clear, only to be intercepted by heavy fire from Doranian cruisers.

"Looks like they learned a little from the Probing Attack."

Zarek frowned and nodded.

"But that is like shooting a fink with a heavy bolter," he said." And the ships firing at the missiles need to maneuver a little more than the other ships. Besides they are not shooting good enough."

Space in front of the _Maru_ began to light up with a larger number of short lived suns than before from the heavy weapons of the Joint Fleet.

"We're in range," the tactical office said and as if he had said something wrong energy beams of Doranian weapons slammed into the _Maru's_ shield.

"So are they," Zarek said dryly." Fire."

Newly installed gravitic cannons and plasma mortars opened fire, spraying space between the Maru and a Doranian cruiser with plasma and gravitic pulses. The heavy gravitic pulses destabilized the Cruisers shield even before the plasma bulses breached it and smalled into and through the thin little armored hull.

"The 'furies are reaching the platforms."

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Lieutenant David 'Biggy' Biggs laughed out loud as he pointed the nose of his Thunderbolt Starfury towards one of the Doranian weapons platforms and pressed the trigger. Onder and in front of him, the heavy Warhammer cannon spat out its deadly plasma bolts.

"Biggy, you are scaring me right now," his weapon officer, Ensign Joice 'Radar' Mitchell, said over the music of Rammstein and Iron Maiden that was coming in from one of the other Thunderbolts.

"Oh lighten up, Raider," he said back, grinning like a little kid." This is much more fun than Ace Combat or Wing Commander."

The Starfuries had made it right through the enemy lines without losing on of their own. The Doranians hadn't even fired at the Starfuries, not seeing them as threats. And the platforms too weren't able to make a score. The 'furies were much too maneuverable as that the platforms could get a solid lock.

Biggy pulled the Thunderbolt into a strave, the Warhammer still locked with the platform as the 'fury passed it.

"How about you so something useful and get me a solid lock for our nukies?"

Rader mumbled something, but Biggy wasn't able to understand her. The 'nukies' were ten HIVAT 5 Anti ship torpedos from Dark Knight's arsenals, but they had been modified to carry a single 100kt MIRV warhead that used to belong to a Minuteman III missile.

"There you got your lock."

"Thanks, Radar," Biggy said with another large grin." Remind me to give you a big kiss when we get back."

"No thank you. I think I can do without one."

"Your loss. I bet D or K would like one."

"Dream on, Biggy."

Biggy continued to grin and pressed the another trigger, twice.

"Fox Three! Fox Three!"

Two HIVAT torpedos left their ejector rails and sped away towards the Platform. Biggy pulled the Thunderbolt around and away from the Platform with solid nine gee, dodging any attempt of the platform to get a solid lock by firing the vernier thrusters randomly.

For a moment there was a bright white light that reflected from several nearby Thunderbolts or Tigers and Biggy pulled his 'fury back around in a one eighty.

"What do you think. Am I good? Or am I good?"

"Shut up and fly, Biggs."


	32. Chapter 32

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 31

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"A beacon," the voice hammered deep into his brain like a sledge hammer." We found a freaking beacon!"

Commander Daniel Garrett cracked open an eye, only to look at the grinning face of his second in command, Lieutenant Commander Erick Salerstad. Garrett wanted to berate Salerstad for waking him up, but that his words registered and he was wide awake.

"What? Where?"

Salerstads grin sacked a little.

"We don't know, but its a beacon. How are the chances that its one in Minbari space?"

Garrett strapped out of his bed and floated to his locker.

"How long until we reach it?"

Again Salerstads grin went to full force.

"We're practically sit on top of it. We're just a kilometer away from it."

Gerrett has never been faster to dress himself as he charged out of his cabin and towards the bridge. And he had never been on the bridge faster.

All this had begun three month ago. _EAS_ _Sabre_ had gone on a recon mission for EFNI, trying to gather information on the Minbari for the war effort. They had gotten what they were looking for in a Minbari shuttle that had carried several Minbari that could best be called dissidents. Five of the six Minbari were to try and open talks between EA and the Minbari Federation, initiated by a group called Anla'Shok. After picking them up, _Sabre_ had entered jump space, and made best speed towards Sinazar.

Than the attack had come. The attacking ship had been identified by the single Anla'Shok as ships of a race called Shadows. Luckily the gravitic currents of jump space had pulled _Sabre_ out of range of the Shadow ship in the least possible moment, but not without letting the beam weapon eat into the armor protecting the Jump Drive.

All Quantum-40 reserves had suddenly deflagated and a strange jump point opened directly on top of _Sabre_ , pulling her in before anyone, including the crew of the Shadow ship, had been able to react. The strange thing was, instead of jumping to normal space, they had been deposited in jump space, far away from any jump beacon or guidance beam.

In the last three month they had learned quite a few things about the Minbari and the Minbari had used the time to learn English.

"Okay, people," Garrett said as he entered the bridge." Talk to me."

"We are ready to return to normal space. The beacon had recognized out codes and is ready to open the jump gate for us."

"Any luck with IDing the beacon? Or any guidance beam."

"Nope, sorry sir."

Garrett nodded and strapped into his seat.

"How about our guests?"

"They are still in the flywheel. You know that they don't react too good to zero g."

"Okay, open a jump point, I want to see some stars and a planet if possible."

The helmsman nodded and began to work on his console.

"Jump Gate activating."

The Jump Point opened and the two powerful engines pushed _Sabre_ into the funnel of the jump point.

"What the..."

Everyone on the bridge stared at the screen that showed a single planet.

"Is that... Earth?"

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It was a pitiful existence, but it was an existence. It was much better than being blown up by your own sun. Battle Master Len'dar closed his eyes.

He and many others were lucky to still be alive. They had been able to flee Omelos before their sun had gone nova and destroyed their home world. Even after all these years he still longed to set a foot back onto the surface of Omelos, let the wind brush through his hair. Look down at the Norther Sea where he had been born. But Omelos had been reduced to a burned out, glassed over world when their sun had gone nova and destroyed everything in their system.

The leaders of the Dilgar Imperium had known of that, why else could they have started the war that ultimately was the end of the Imperium and the Dilgar as a local power. A war that had left the last of the Dilgar become little more than dirty, staving shells of their former glory. But it was better than being completely wiped from the galactic map and becoming a fading memory.

Omelos was becoming a fading memory already. Many of the newly born generations didn't know much more than their pitiful life on the orbital conglomerates and the domes on New Omelos.

Len'dar laughed a bitter laugh as he glanced out of the window of his ship and down on the surface of the planet that had become their new home. He could see patches of green, where the few bio-genetics had managed to adapt plants from Omelos to the low pressure environment of the planet.

He could also see the craters where they had dropped ice asteroids to get more water on the planet and some of the domed cities they had build close to those impact craters, but even those cities were small in their number. They were build mostly from the materials of scrapped transports and a crude glass-like material that could be created with the sand of the planet below, sand that was there in large numbers.

Even after more than fourty years, they were still trying to build up a home, trying to live as best as they could, trying to make the best of what little they got.

It was laughable. The plants the bio-genetics had adapted were mostly trees and other plants that couldn't be eaten by the Dilgar and those plants that could be eaten were only capable of feeding a quarter of a population of nearly twenty million Dilgar. Everyone, even he had to cope with the rationing of food, water or other things.

Even being the highest ranking member of the military he hadn't seen a single piece of new clothing in the last thirty years. And he didn't really care about it anymore.

Twenty million Dilgar. About fifty percent more than the number of Dilgar that had made it here from Omelos. But it should have been more than a hundred million Dilgar and enough transports with industrial systems to build up a new home for them. What they got was barely enough for letting them survive. It was ironic that all military ships that were ordered to leave had made it, while nearly eighty percent of the civilian ships hadn't made it, being blown to bits by the Centauri, the League and the Minbari.

It had been insane of Jha'dur to attack the Centauri, but she hadn't listened to anyone. She had depopulated two Centauri worlds with one of her plagues and the Centauri had reacted in kind. It had drawn the Centauri into the war and ironically freed the Narn, as the Centauri had to draw ships and troops from Narn space to reinforce their fleets against the Dilgar. At least they now got a little help from the Narn out of it. Not very much and most defiantly not enough to make it worthwhile for New Omelos.

And the worst was the accidental attack on on a Minbari fleet. It had brought in the Minbari who had all but smashed through the Dilgar fleet and only stopped at the outer system of the Dilgar home system. It had been the end.

Jha'dur's fleet had been destroyed by the Minbari and the Imperium had lost its leadership in several strikes from dissidents. The dissidents had taken over the government and tried to talk about peace, but it had been to late. The sun had shown signs of going nova and they had tried to save as many as possible. But the Centauri, Minbari and League had destroyed every ship that had left the system. Only in the last two years some scientists had been able to build a device that swallowed the slipstream event that accompanied the entering and leaving of Slipstream. Only then ships had been able to flee with a chance to get away.

But it was of little use when Len'dar looked at what had remained. Dozens of orbital stations were orbiting the planet, patched together from numerous transports and warships. Other ships had touched down and became planetary homes. Of more than eight hundred warships a hundred remained, and even those barely able to really fight, the crews and machinery nothing more than shades of better times.

Again he closed his eyes.

The war had been madness. The money that had gone into the war could have been used to relocate the entire population of Omelos to the colonies and build the infrastructure to hold them. Even with time to spare. But Jha'dur had told them all into the war. And this was the result.

"I hope you are proud of yourself, War Master," he said, very well knowing that no one heard him." You have reduced us to scavengers, to the low life of the galaxy. And it's all we will ever be."

For the n-th time in forty years he played with the thought to jump out of the nearest air lock, but he couldn't leave his people alone. He just couldn't.

"Battle Master?" he heard a voice behind him and turned around to look into the face of a young Force Master, already born on New Omelos.

"Yes?"

"One of the patrols has encountered a ship of unknown design."

"A trader?"

"Its a warship."

Len'dar closed his eyes for a moment. All he could do was hope that that ship hadn't called anyone in the League, the Centauri or the Minbari. Through he doubted that any of those races would care about the Dilgar anymore.

"Has anyone fired?"

"No, Battle Master."

He breathed in deep. He was quite sure that the air was reeking with bad smells, but he had gotten used to them long ago.

"I will come to the Command Center shortly."

"Yes, Battle Master."

The Force Master left and Len'dar turned back to the window to look at the planet below. For a moment he just stood there before leaving the room and walking towards the Command Center of one of the two last Mishakur.

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"Phase three."

This shout went through the packed cargo hold of _RFA_ _Fort_ _Austin_ and the Marines got themselves together. The Tank crews jumped into their tanks, while other marines jumped on LAVs, HMMWVs and KLR 2250 dirtbikes. Each of them was ready, their M4A2 ready to shoot, fusion cells fully charged and magazines ready for reloading their weapons.

Up in the Command Center of _Fort_ _Austin_, Commander McLoud, was ready.

"Signal to _Zeratul_. They can open the Jump Point."

_Fort_ _Austin_ was currently still hanging in Jump Space and _Zeratul_, a multi mega ton freighter had been chartered specially for this job, opeing a Jump Point deep inside the atmosphere of Rustoner to let _Fort_ _Austin_ land her Marines as fast as possible before retreating on the same way.

"Jump Point forming."

"Okay people, this is going to get rough."

The Jump Point opened in front of Fort Austin and the freighter variant Monsoon jumped towards it. It came out on the other side, not even three kilometers above the surface. Atmospheric drives went online, while the simple gravity control systems pushed against the gravitic pull of Rustoner.

"Looks like the Highlands in winter," McLoud noted and pushed the controls forward to begin his landing in one of the large snowy plains, not far from one of the equally large forests.

"Touchdown in three... two... one... Now!"

The Monsoon wasn't even two meters above the ground before touching down as the ramps and air locks to the cargo hold opened up and slammed into the ground.

"Go, Go, Go!"

The voice of the commanding Colonel of the Marine Expedition Commando was heard throughout the cargo hold and the numerous vehicles charged into the cold air of Rustoner, the big brown and yellow marble of Gol hanging just above the horizon.

Not even five minutes after touch down the cargo hold was empty, save for some wrappings of MREs. The cargo hold doors and airlocks slammed shut and with howling atmospheric engines the Monsoon lifted up, while the Marines were on their way towards the nearby forest, their tanks and vehicles painted in snow cameo.

"The signal," McLoud said and the Monsoon was back on its way towards the coordinates where they had entered real space and the atmosphere of Rustoner.

"Any moment now."

Like ordered, another Jump Point formed inside the deep atmosphere of Rustoner and _Fort_ _Austin_ charged right into it.

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"Phase Three."

Tenchi nodded at his plot table, looking at the tactical display.

"Intensify fire on Quadrant Six. And I want two or three corvettes to Kamikaze in Quadrant Two."

_Dark_ _Knight_ rocked slightly as three Doranian dreadnoughts fired at her at the same time.

"Shield breach, Sector One. Retaliating."

The highly charged Quantum Discharge Cannon of _Dark_ _Knight_ lanced out, the lightning like beam slamming into the shields of a Dreadnought and stood there for a moment, before the shield buckled and the lightning penetrated it, only to slam into and through the thin armor.

Just as the sensor arrays of _Dark_ _Knight_ picked up an opening jump point, two Ferron Corvettes detonated their charges, creating short lived and powerful singularities, bending and twisting space and the hulls of several cruisers with them until their structure collapsed.

"Ready for Phase four."

For a moment Tenchi stared at the clock and the slowly changing seconds on it.

"Fearless reports shield loss. Shield is restoring, but they got several frontal hits. They lost their Spinal laser. Shield now restored."

For a moment Tenchi wondered. Armor was at least as effective as a layer of shielding, why wasn't there a race out there that used armor like every race in the EA-verse?

"Jump Point. Fort Austin left Rustoner."

Tenchi nodded.

"Phase four. Recall all Starfuries."

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"Phase Four!"

"Finally."

Captain Sutol licked his dry lips and breathed in deep.

"_Nanesal_ opens the Jump Point."

Sutol looked at the screen of the bridge and watched how the Jump Point formed and his helmsman, well, helmswoman let his ship, _Ruston_, dive through the Jump Point and into the upper atmosphere of Gol.

"Okay, we got a fifty thousand kilometers in front of us, lets hope that the Doranians don't catch up with us."

"Heh," he heard from his helmswoman." I bet they don't even get to the mercury layer at twenty thousand kilometers."

The spheric freighter, together with a pair of other freighter specially build for Gol continued to drop through Gol's atmosphere, their gravitic drives doing nothing to slow their fall.

"Fourty five thousand. Activating Aero-sheath Field."

Several gravitic fields snapped into existence forcing the hydrogen-methane atmosphere around of the already white glowing surface of spheric freighter. And still _Ruston_ continued to pummel deeper into the atmosphere of Gol, pulled by a gravitation nearly a thousand times higher than that of Earth.

"Fourty thousand. Passing the methane ocean."

Like a projectile the Aero-sheath forced liquid methane around the freighter as it passed through the a hundred kilometers thick ocean that was held high above the atmosphere by powerful upwinds in this height. It passed through the planetary methane ocean and than through a similar ocean made from petroleum. The pressure of the atmosphere was high enough that even the Bathyscaphe Trieste, having dove to the bottom of the Mariana Trench would have been destroeyed.

"Thirty Thousand."

With the pressure that still continued to raise, the atmosphere should have long acted like a liquid, but it didn't.

"Mercury layer. Only twenty thousand more."

Still being a fall of flame, Ruston fell deeper and deeper.

"Fifteen thousand, prepearing deceleration."

Deep within the one thousand five hundred meter sphere powerful reactors increased the reaction mass feed to create more energy and pour it into the equally powerful gravitic drives of the massive freighter.

"Three... Two... One... NOW!"

As if hit by a giant hammer, Ruston shook, as its drives overpowered the massive pull of the planet below, the reactors, making up more than fifty percent of the ships entire volume into engines that made up twenty percent of the volume. And the drives won the tug of war over the massive sphere, as they always won.

The engines began to eat away more and more speed as the freighter continued to pummel towards the surface.

"Five Thousand. Welcome to the clear zone."

As if cut by a giant knife, the clouds and all other atmospheric anomalies of Gol stopped allowing to look straight down upon the surface of Gol. Even from this high the curve of the planet couldn't be seen.

"Notifying _Arcadia_. Phase Four finished."

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"Phase Four finished. The freighters are on Gol."

Tenchi nodded. The freighters would remain on Gol, just in case the Doranians would make it down to the surface before it was projected. Than they would evacuate the miners.

"Status of the Starfuries?"

"Red Palace just picked up their last stranglers. No losses of Starfuries."

Tenchi nodded again.

"Okay. That concludes Operation 'Troy'. Retreat. Kamikaze for all AI units. We go last."


	33. Chapter 33

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 32

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"What?"

Seiler sighed a little as he looked at Admiral Dubinin. He didn't really like the Russian, but that didn't change the fact that he had to work with him. And he would do so very professionally.

"The ship got a Earth Force IFF code, Minbari War coding. IFF identifies the ship as _EAS_ _Sabre_. It was listed as MIA, presumed KIA, until 2263, when they found her drifting in Jump Space. However, they changed her IFF code."

Dubinin stared at the holographic display for a moment and how a pair of Monsoons were closing in of the _Sabre_, backed up by a Lupo.

"How the hell did that ship get here than?"

"How did the _Maru_ get to Vega?"

Dubinin frowned for a moment.

"_Sabre_ is rerouting energy to her weapons."

"Hail them."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Garrett sighed as he continued to look at the screen in front of him. He didn't really know what to think of this. Mentally he added the fact that presented themselves to him.

First, there was a Jump Gate at L4, where it should be at Io.

Second, said Jump Gate was much like the old Earth Force Jump Gates from the time when they had build the first gates themselves back in 2210.

Third, a pair of very large green objects were sitting in space in spitting distance of the Jump Gate. And if all was as it seemed to be, those objects were frikkin giant trees!

Fourth, there were much more of these frikkin giant trees in orbit around Earth. To quote of of his crew: "Earth has been invaded by tree hugging aliens!"

Fifth, three vessels were closing in on Sabre, the Jump Gate and the two frikkin giant trees. And they were using Earth Force IFF codes, even if the codes were strange.

Sixth, some of the radio messages caught up from the primitive satellites orbiting Earth were containing a date. And he was pretty sure that it hadn't been the year 2003 when they had left Earth.

"What the hell is going on here?" he asked aloud.

"We're being hailed."

Garrett nodded absentminded, before the words registered.

"Put it through."

The main screen changed to show the face of a human, dressed in a uniform of a very old design.

"This is Admiral Valentin Borissovich Dubinin," the man on the screen said in english with a heavy russian accent," Commander of Earth Defense Center Shabazza and CIC of the Russian Republic Space Fleet. Identify yourself."

"This is madness," one of the bridge crew said and was silenced by a hard glare.

"Commander Daniel Garrett, commander of _EAS Sabre_. Could you please explain me what the hell is going on here?"

Dubinin frowned for a moment and than looked past the camera that recorded his face.

"I think we should talk face to face, Commander. Because we don't understand it completely ourselves. I will also notify Commodore Masaki about this."

"Who the hell is Commodore Masaki?"

Dubinin frowned again.

"You will receive coordinates for rendezvous and docking with Shabazza. Dubinin out."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Captain Masaki had delayed the Dilgars try for communication as long as possible, trying to get more information from the sensors as they went. And it had been worthwhile. He was surprised to see that the Dilgar were using at least some protection beyond the typical shields, with at least some thin armor over the main hull. Another surprise was the fact that the ships they were facing were leaking more energy than they should, indicating that those ships were pretty old, and the optical data from the hulls, minimalistic repairs in the hull or damages from micro meteorites, had only confirmed that those ships were in a bad shape.

Not really what you would expect from a race that had pulled the local part of the galaxy into a genocidal war.

Masaki could understand the cause of that war. The Dilgar had known that their sun would blow up in a nova and they had tried to save their population with this war. The means however were another thing. But they weren't really all that different from the means Japan had used in World War Two. But a much better comparation could be done with Nazi-Germany and their genocide of certain 'lower races'.

He closed his eyes for a moment and pulled his uniform into shape, not so unlike Captain Picard. He straightened a little and than nodded.

"Put the call through."

The Communications operator nodded and a screen build up in the air in front of him. It showed a Dilgar in a worn out uniform, the hair partly gray and tangled. His face looked skinny and the whole look of the Dilgar was far away from the picture the rest of the galaxy seemed to have of the Dilgar. The man had more of a beggar than of a warrior. And the strange lookon his face, showing a mix of fear and surprise, wasn't doing much to change that.

"This is Captain Yoshi Masaki of the Japanese Defense Ship _Yugiri_, attached to Earth Defense," he said in his mother language, Japanese, a language he knew to be called Intercosmo by the rest of the galaxy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Len'dar wasn't really all that surprised that the unknown ship hadn't answered to their calls. The remaining ships of the formally fearsome Dilgar Imperium weren't really able to scare people anymore. But that had given his men and women time enough to get at least some information about that ship.

From the basic design it was looking like dagger and a single large fin of a gravimetric drive. It showed that that ship wasn't build according to win an award for beauty and the weapon turrets showed that it was a dedicated warship, nothing more, nothing less. But of hand Len'dar couldn't remember any race that used turretet weapon mounts.

The ship itself was of a light gray color and a large white rectangle with a red circle was painted brightly on the frontal part and he could read the name of the ship painted onto the side in an unknown script and Intercosmo. _JDS_ _Yugiri_, but considering that a number of races had taken on Intercosmo as their main language, he couldn't really tell much more.

However, he was positively surprised that the ship wasn't rerouting energy to their weapons, through it seemed that they kept their shields ready. But Len'dar wasn't going to open fire. He and the remains of the Dilgar couldn't afford it. They couldn't need someone who would start another war, that could completely destroy the Dilgar.

"They are answering."

For a moment Len'dar was glad that they finally answered. Without a doubt that had also gotten more information about his ships during the time they hadn't answered.

Than the screen of the com connection appeared out of thin air in front of him and Len'dar suddenly felt like his legs were made of cheap rubber as he looked into the face of a man that looked very much like that of the Jurian Emperor Azusa.

"This is Captain Yoshi Masaki of the Japanese Defense Ship _Yugiri_, attached to Earth Defense," the man on the screen said in Intercosmo.

It wasn't Azusa, but the resemblance was striking. And wasn't the family name of the man Masaki? And wasn't the Jurian Emperors family name also Masaki? Len'dar pushed those thoughts aside. He would find out soon enough.

The ship clearly didn't belong to any known race or military. And the man on the screen, while looking like Azusa, had a clean shaved face, short hair and was dressed in a strange while uniform of unknown design rather than a robe other militaries seemed to prefer.

"Battle Master Len'dar, commander of the Dilgar Remenant Forces," he said, trying to be as cofident as possible, but after more than forty years it became more and more of a problem." Please state the reason why you have entered Dilgar Space."

He looked at the face of Masaki, and had noted a slight change when he had said 'Remenant Forces'.

"We are on a peaceful mission, Battle Master," the man said and Len'dar could hear a little bit of respect from the Masaki's voice." We weren't aware that this was the refuge of the last Dilgar."

Len'dar felt a stab into his heart, as Masaki had mentioned the fact that he knew that they were the last. But how couldn't he know. Omelos was destroyed and there were only a few Dilgar left, doing a little trade with the Narn and the Galactic Union. The Narn looked down at the Dilgar traders with pity, while the members of the Union frowned and scorned them. The respect Masaki showed was something no one had done ever since the war had started and ended.

"Not many are," he said." We try to keep to ourselves."

Masaki nodded slightly.

"I can understand and respect that."

Again Masaki showed more respect than he was used to by a member of another race.

"What is your mission, Captain?"

"We are on a mission to patrol the Corian Expanse and look for any planet that could be colonized or could yield valuable raw materials."

Len'dar was again surprised. He hadn't thought that Masaki would tell him the truth, but as far as he could tell, the man on the other side of the communication connection had.

"Where do you come from, Captain?"

It couldn't hurt to know where these people came from.

"Earth, a planet in the center of the Corian Expance."

And another surprise. Len'dar knew of only one planet that was habitable in the Corian Expanse and that planet was under the protection of the Jurians. Had the Jurians given them the technology to get into outer space? He had to know.

"Maybe we could meet face to face, Captain? And talk. I'd like you to meet me aboard my ship, the _Omelos_."

Masaki thought for a few moments. Than he nodded.

"Yes," he said." I would like to come."

"Until than, Captain."

This would get interesting, Len'dar thought.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Ryoko glanced at the barkeeper.

"Gimme another shot," she said." Better yet, leave me the whole bottle."

The barkeeper raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as he place the bottle of high percentage vodka in front of Ryoko. She really needed this. She needed to forget the horrible images, they were just too much.

She'd never visit her mother again without calling. She might see her doing the horizontal mambo with Ramsey again...

She shuddered and emptied the bottle of vodka in one draw.

"Gimme another bottle..."

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Bismark didn't really know what to think of this. First members of the Raumflotte had stormed at him as he left the Nautilus, asking all sorts of questions and now he got he 'Red Carpet' treatment as he left the shuttle on Tempelhof.

The pilot of the shuttle had said that they would land on Tempelhof, because the other two airports of Berlin were pretty much unable to take the landing of the shuttle and Tempelhof was just the right place for the return of a Bismark.

Bismark wasn't quite sure what he should think of this as he stepped out of the shuttle. Flashes came over him as photographers pointed their cameras at him. Than two men in expansive suits came towards the shuttle. Bismark needed some time to recognize one of them as Gerhard Schröder, the Kanzler of Germany. For the other he needed a moment longer, but than he recognized him as the Carl-Eduard von Bismark, the son of his nephew Ferdinand, who had been born two years before Joachim had been abducted.

For a moment he sighed, knowing that none of his brothers and sisters were alive anymore, but at least there was still family around. And from what he had read, they were still active in Politics, through less successful as his father or grandfather.

Even through he felt a little out of place in the US Navy uniform he was still wearing, he smiled and stepped out of the shuttle to walk up to the two men. For a moment he wondered how Haruka was doing up on Shabazza.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"TENCHI!" the scream went through the cabin of Tenchi, followed by a loud "GAH!" and a loud thuk.

Slowly Tenchi removed his face from the ground, where he had fallen out of his bed and his glaze went to his alarm clock.

"Do you have any idea what time it is, DK?"

"Time for you to wake up."

"I went to sleep just an hour ago. What the hell is going on?"

_Dark_ _Knight_ seemed to breathe in deep.

"We have a situation at Earth."

Tenchi shook his head. He couldn't need this. 'Operation Troy' had been a success. While the fleet had dropped the Marines on Rustoner and the freighters on Gol, they had destroyed a hundred twenty Doranian ships and about fifty orbital platforms, while only having some minor damages done to the hull and only a few hullbreaches, once again showing how useful armor really was even in this universe where shields were used.

"What is it? Doranians?"

_Dark_ _Knight_ was silent for a moment.

"No, its _EAS_ _Sabre_. Admiral Dubinin has requested your return to Earth to deal with Commander Garrett."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Haruka closed her eyes as she sat in one of the rooms of Shabazza. The weeks after getting back their freedom had been interesting to say at least. She and the other Shin'bi had learned a lot about the humans, herself maybe a little more than the others as she was now a good speaker of English and German, through Joachim had said that she still had a strong accent.

She had learned a little about the ways the humans were passing time and a game they called 'Dungeon and Dragons'. The 'Gamemaster' of the group she had played with had grinned and chuckled madly as she had tried to explain what she was, before cracking up and screaming something about the perfect enemy and 'dragon ninja pirate'.

The game itself had showed her quite a bit about the humans and that there were legends about beings similar to her kind. Some of these 'dragons' were considered monsters, mostly in the 'western countries', while others were considered wise being in the 'eastern countries'. For herself it was sowhat similar to the legends of the Great Teachers, who had thought the Shin'bi and brought them out of the savage times.

She sighed. The humans had told her that they would try to get them to their homeworld, but they would need sometime before they had a ship that could do just that and open a diplomatic contact to the countries of her homeworld.

For a moment she wondered if she would see Joachim again before that happened. She would miss him.


	34. Chapter 34

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 33

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Nesemal was a small city, located in the Anadal Mountains of the northern hemisphere of Rostoner. It was a mix of a mining town and farm town, as large farms were located around the town, using the fertile land of the volcanic mountains to grow crops and many vegetables. Other farms were breeding the giant froglike animals that provided most of the moons meant when it came to the moons independence from food imports.

The Anadal Mountains were close to the equator of Rustoner and the climate was less harsh than further north. But even than the climate was harsh and Russians from Earth would find much of themselves in the twenty million Ferrons of Rustoner who had settled down on the moon a thousand years ago.

But the peaceful life of the Nesemals had been changed two month ago when the Doranians had landed a landing ship close to their town and had simply ran over the lightly armed Ferrons. A nightmare had begun back than. A few of them had manged to kill one or two Doranians, but the invaders had a found a perverse pleasure to kill each of the armed defenders as slowly as possible, using various means, while the rest of the population was forced to watch.

The Doranians had all but killed most of the old folks of the town, those who weren't able to work. Hate and anger was building up in the Ferrons while some of the young folks were pulled away from their parents, put into shuttles and than shipped away from Rustoner to be slaves for the Doranians. Most of the Ferrons however were forced to continue their life, while being under heavy surveillance. Be it in the mines or on the farms, through it was winter and not much could be done on the crop farms.

Others were forced to work for the Doranians, building up pre-fabbed buildings and a completely new building for the local military commander. Patrols went through the streets, sometimes shooting a Ferron just for fun. Once or twice selected young men had been forced to run for their lives in the large forest near Nesemal, only to be hunted like prey by the Doranians.

Some of the Ferrons had given up, others were busy, trying to find away to fight the Invaders, and some had even began to work with the Doranians, denouncing others, just to save their skins and make themselves essential to the Invaders. It showed every bit of human behavior.

The day had started like all others, some of the Doranians and the Ferrons had seen the lights above, of the large battle, while others had seen how something had come and gone for a few moments while the battle above raged. The Ferrons had hoped for their freedom, as it had to be the Navy to fight back the Invaders, while the Doranians had been sure that nothing would change. But no one had thought twice about the strange light that had shown up in that night.

Than strange noises could be heard coming from south. Strange high pitched noises that were coming towards Nesemal.

Doranians and Ferrons were surprised as strange two wheeled vehicles raced past them and Doranians were suddenly falling to the ground, bleeding from numerous wounds through their armor. The two wheeled vehicles weren't the only ones racing down the streets of Nesemal, they were followed by cubic wide cars, topped by large guns and, like the two-wheels, driven by white skinned people in white uniforms. The guns weren't emitting the normal whooshing sound of a PPC, but rather loud staccato noises.

Behind the cars followed large wheeled and tracked vehicles, speeding towards the large landing ship that towered above the town.

Loud booms were heard as the largest of the tracked vehicles fired their large cannons and a whooshing sound from a smaller vehicle with a stubby cannon. The smaller tracked vehicle fired blue-white energy bolts that slammed into the side of the landing ship, while large explosions showed where the cannons of the two other wheeled vehicles had hit.

The wheeled vehicles spread out through the city, their crews shooting at Doranians only, while the tracked vehicles continued to make their way towards the landing ship, constantly firing their weapons.

The crew of the ship needed time to get over their shock before they returned fire with their ground weapons. Plasma bolts spat towards the tracked vehicles, while the shield build up slowly, the damage done by the vehicles keeping it from reaching full strength. As the Plasma Bolts reached the vehicles they slammed into the vehicles shields and the vehicles continued to fire, through at a lower target this time, not at the high silhouette.

A single Doranian in powered armor was hit by the projectile of a large tracked vehicle, the high velocity projectile punching a clean 120mm hole into him and his armor, while continuing towards the ship. It was a lucky hit that caused the reactor of the ship to loose containment, burning through the whole ship, and causing plasma to leak through the numerous holes in the hull. The shield collapsed and the weapon fire stopped, the remains of the landing ship slowly collapsing as they followed the pull of Rustoners gravity.

Somewhere else in the town pre-fabbed buildings and the 'Commanders Palace' detonated spectacularly as high explosive charges, planted by the white skinned people, did their job.

Ten minutes later the whole ordeal was over. Ninety percent of the Doranians had been killed, the rest was injured and beaten to death by the Ferrons. All Doranian buildings were destroyed. And not a single Ferron had been killed or injured by the white men, before they disappeared into the woods.

Most of the Ferrons knew that they had to leave their town. Now or never, because the Invaders would come back.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Slipstream Event," the voice of Sergeant Seiler echoed through the Main Control Center of the Earth Defense Center." Its _Dark_ _Knight_."

Dubinin smiled as he looked over to Captain Garrett, the Commander of _EAS_ _Sabre_.

"Notify _Dark_ _Knight_ that we got one of the Ferron Transmitters. I think they should have one themselves."

Garrett looked puzzled, just as he had looked very puzzled as Dubinin had led him into the MCC. The first thing he had done was asking if Shabazza was really a tree and if he really was alive. Only to get an answer from an annoyed Dyson Tree.

"_Dark_ _Knight_ confirms a lock with out transmitter. Commodore Masaki will come over shortly while _Dark_ _Knight_ docks with Shabazza."

Garrett didn't really know what he should think and he had this strange feeling that he wouldn't like any of the information he would get one bit. This strange space tree was one of his problems. Another were these very large ships that were keeping close to the tree or were docked with its branches like _Sabre_ was at this moment.

But not only that, he had seen a Centauri Vorchan cruiser, a Narn Sho'kar Scout and a Minbari ship his Minbari guests had identified as **Leshath Heavy Scout. And than there were several egg shaped vessels docked around a very large freighter. And now he was looking at a ship that looked like the unholy union of a brick and a squid.**

**"I hope you got a good reason to have me yelled out of bed by _Dark_ _Knight_ and fly all the way from Vega back home," a voice came from one of the entries.**

**Garrett turned around to look at a asian human in Earth Force uniform, with the rank of a Commodore, and a very gorgeous asian woman, dressed in skintight black leather. Than he noticed the Psi Corps pin on her chest and frowned. The last thing he needed was a teep snooping in his mind.**

**The woman raised an eyebrow and Garrett cursed silently, trying to keep his thoughts to himself.**

**The Russian Admiral laughed once and pointed to Garrett.**

**"That reason would be him and his ship."**

**Garrett looked at the Commodore. Somehow that man looked familiar, but for the love of god Garrett couldn't tell why. The Commodore looked back at him and than frowned.**

**"Okay," he said," Something isn't quite right here. _Sabre_ should be back in the EA universe, with the rest of VIII Fleet at Orion."**

**'EA universe'? Garrett didn't really like what the Commodore was saying. Than Masaki smiled a little.**

**"I'm glad that you are alive through," he said as he walked up to Garrett." Been a while since I've seen you, Captain."**

**Garrett looked at Masaki, but still couldn't remember where he had seen the man.**

**"Do I know you, sir?"**

**Masaki chuckled a little.**

**"Well, I was a lowly ensign and Starfury Pilot on the _Sabre_ before I was transferred to _Freespace_ with the rest of my squadron."**

**Garrett nodded at that, it had happened just before they got hit by that Shadow ship after all, not even three month ago.**

**"Only a week before _Sabre_ disappeared in hyperspace, only to be found nearly 18 years later. I think you understand why I'm a little concerned, Captain."**

**Garrett blinked. And blinked again. Than bits and pieces began to settle. Something had happened as the Shadow ship had hit the Quantum-40. He remembered some strange sensory echo before the strange Jump Point had pulled them in.**

**"As far as I can tell," the teep suddenly said," He is the real deal. And I think we should move this conversation to the _Sabre_."**

**"You were in my head," Garrett said, for the moment pushing the thoughts about universes and the Shadow incident away.**

**The woman sighed.**

**"I'm sorry, but I needed to confirm your identity, Captain. We have a few problems here."**

**Garrett glared at the telepath, before looking at Masaki.**

**"Maybe that would be the best. I have..."**

**"I know, Captain. That is exactly why we need to relocate to _Sabre_ and why Admiral Dubinin and anyone else will remain here."**

**"What do you mean by that?" Dubinin asked and crossed his arms.**

**"I'm sorry, Admiral, but this is Earth Force internal for the moment. Eyes Only."**

-----------------------------------------------------------------

**"Okay, what the hell is going on here," Garrett asked and glared at Commodore Masaki as they entered the flywheel of _Sabre_.**

**"You're in another reality, Captain," Tenchi said.**

**He didn't really like this at all, but he had to deal with Garrett, his crew, the Minbari and everyone who knew about Vorlons or Shadows. He was pretty sure that the Minbari Ranger and maybe the Religious cast members aboard the _Sabre_ had identified _Dark_ _Knight_ as being partly Vorlon. Earth had enough problems as it was, they couldn't need Vorlons and Shadows to cause more problems. He also knew that it could cause problems later on, but he was sure that he could come up with something that could explain why he had done what he did by not telling about the both First Ones.**

**"You really think that I'd buy that bullshit?"**

**"Mostly, yes. Its complicated, but its essentially true. While I came here on my own, with Setsuna and _Dark_ _Knight_ accompanying me out of their own free will, you didn't. I guess that would be because of that Shadow attack during jump space transit."**

**Garrett stopped for a moment.**

**"How..."**

**Tenchi sighed.**

**"I come from 2274, Captain. I'm a native to this universe, before I was thrown into your universe in 2242. You know from my files that I was drafted into service in 2245 after the beginning of the war. You also know that your ship was my first assignment before _Freespace_. I've been with you for a month to get some experience after an accelerated trainings program."**

**Garrett licked his lips as he looked at Tenchi.**

**"The war did end?"**

**"Yes, in December 2247, just hours before the Minbari could destroy Earth. The Minbari pretty much totaled Earth Force before surrendering to us... I was one of two hundred to survive the Battle of the Line. One of twenty thousand who began that last battle in the war. It seems that mankind has the reincarnated souls of the Minbari."**

**He heard a gasp from behind and turned to look into the face of several Minbari. He smiled and bowed slightly.**

**"I think you may sit down," he said." What I have to tell you might need some time."**

-----------------------------------------------------------------

**Captain Masaki had to fight hard to suppress the urge to throw up as he breathed in the air on the _Omelos_ for the first time. It reeked of bad smells, everything was mixed in this air, sweat, fecal matter of all kinds, disease and death. The hangar his shuttle had sat down in, wasn't really dirty, through the smell might suggest otherwise. But even than, rust, grime and other kinds of 'sediments' covered corners and plates of the hangar, but that was showing the age of this ship more than anything else.**

**Behind himself, Masaki could hear that one of the escorting soldiers weren't as lucky as him and threw up as he got a good nose of the air inside the _Omelos_, if one could even call it air.**

**"Welcome aboard the _Omelos_," a Dilgar voice said and Masaki looked around, at Battle Master Len'dar.**

**Len'dar was a large Dilgar, and wore an old well used uniform. It wasn't dirty, but it also wasn't exactly clean. It had patches as several places and while it wasn't the best to induce respect, the person wearing had that effect, even if he wasn't really looking much better than his uniform. Len'dars hair looked even more tangled than it had done on the screen and the face, the whole body looked skinny if not undernourished. But even so Len'dar was looking like a man that was to be respected, even if only because he held himself with dignity and honor, even if he looked not much better than a beggar, a difference to Masaki's first impression.**

**Masaki saluted to Len'dar.**

**"It's a pleasure to be here, Battle Master."**

**"You look a little green, Captain."**

**Masaki stopped and fidgeted. He couldn't really think of any way to explain that it was the smell of the air aboard the Omelos.**

**"It's our air, isn't it?" Len'dar asked." It must smell terrible to everyone."**

**Masaki licked suddenly dry lips and breathed in deep. The urge to throw up was back, but again he was able to fight it down.**

**"Yes," he said after a moment.**

**"That is the price we paid," Len'dar said with a heavy sigh." I thought we could take the galaxy, but now we not much more than beggars. We have just enough to survive, and we need to cannibalize our own ships to keep the rest working. And scrubbers for the atmosphere are in huge demand."**

**Masaki nodded and his respect for Len'dar went up a notch for what he had just said. Len'dar smiled.**

**"Please come, I would like to know just how you got into space this fast."**

-----------------------------------------------------------------

**"...just received US citizenship after a speed up application process. Ryoko Mabiki is the first alien to become a citizen of Earth. President Ryan noted that this the the least the United States can do for saving Earth during the third Doranian Attack..."**

**zap**

**"... just announced that the NATO is being dissolved to the 27th November. This ends a long standing multinational military organization. However, the NATO member states, as well as all other nations with a space fleet, save for Southern Korea, announced the formation of the Global Defensive Initiative GDI to the 28th November as well as taking over the administrative structure of the NATO. This is considered the immediate reaction to the inability of the UN to decide.."**

**zap**

**"...presented the design for the MiG-37 Viper to the public. The Viper is the first aerospace fighter design that is going to be produced with technology from the Earth Force Tech files..."**

**zap**

**"...founded the Dilgar Relief Fund. Not only Bob Geldorf, but also Bono of U2, stand behind this project to provide the first humanitarian aid to an alien species. The revenue of this years sales of Band Aid as well as those of Band Aid 20, are going into the Dilgar Relief Fund..."**

**zap**

**"...destroyed key command centers of the Northern Korean Armed forces with precision orbital strikes. Experts believe that Northern Korea will surrender in the next month..."**

**zap**

**"... still government loyal army and navy units regained control over the greater Jakarta area..."**

**zap**

**"... by a Malasian submarine. This ends the threat of the Ache submarine that terrorized the shipping lanes in the the Strait of Malacca..."**

**zap**

**"...is notified that record donations were made in just two weeks of the Dilgar Relief Fund. Estimations say that more than 2 billion US dollar were donated and received from the 2003 sells of Band Aid and Band Aid 20 records, while music piracy of these songs have reached an all time low. Surprisingly most of the donations come from Germany and Japan, who had to endure a similar situation as the Dilgar during and after the Second World War..."**

**zap**

**"...was announced by Boeing. With this the F-37 is the second aerospace fighter designed with the new technologies..."**

**zap**

**"... are more than 80 percent of Northern Korea under South Korean control..."**

**zap**

**"...confirmed the death of several Al Quaeda Leaders. However more of them are still on the run..."**

**zap**

**"...has arrived in Earth Orbit and will land in Rotterdam shortly. The _Bright_ _Horizon_, which is the first Ferron freighter to arrive at Earth in October 2003, will be loaded with more than 25 million tons of relief goods for New Omelos. These relief good include clothing, food and everyday articles and present the more than 4 billion US dollar that had been donated since the funding in November 2003. The GDI is providing members of the Dilgar Relief Fund with several ships as escort..."**


	35. Chapter 35

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 34

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**Sergeant Cores flinched as an orbital strike obliterated a good portion of the woods not far from their position. Over the last month of guerrilla warfare against the Doranians on Rustoner, the damned cats had learned. It was getting harder to surprise them as they began to set up observation posts around the town they controlled.**

**During the last week two raids on nearby towns had nearly ended as disaster. They had lost five HMMWVs and a number of good Marines. The Sheridan had been used to blow up the cars, while other Marines got the bodies of their fallen comrades and friends. To the ten dead they had thirty wounded. At least they had the three transmitters in concealed positions and they could move the fallen and the wounded from the moon to a waiting transport.**

**And now the orbital strikes of the last few hours. The Doranians weren't really able to look through the dense cover of the woods, so they just directed small kinetic strikes to the areas they thought the Marines were at. Up until now they hadn't caught them, but that could end in a lucky hit of the Doranians.**

**"This way," one of their Ferron guides said and directed the Command LAV into the direction of the last kinetic strike.**

**It was the best they could do, no one in their right mind, not even Doranians would hit the same area twice. And than there was also the fact that the last strike was very close to a mountainside and that the Doranians couldn't hit closer to the mountain.**

**Okay, they could hit the mountain itself and bury the Marines, but it was unlikely. The Doranians liked to hunt and they were doing so, hunting the Marines. The orbital strikes were to get them into an area where the Doranians could control the game, that were the rules to them. A pitty that the Marines didn't intend to follow those rules. Especially because there was a large number of Ferron civilians following them.**

**Some of the civilians had been evacuated through the transmitters, but most refused to leave Rustoner, something that was perfectly understandable to most of the Marines. So they had gone and armed the Ferrons. Most of them were now armed with M4A2 rifles, but there had also been a shipment of Ferron weapons, so called Pulsers.**

**Much like the human weapons, they were projectile weapons, but rather than using a railgun system and conventional explosives to propell the projectile, they used a gravitic system. It allowed higher speeds than the railgun system of the M4.**

**Some of the Marines had laughed like mad and grabbed a Pulser for themselves, but that wasn't all that surprising, considering what a Pulser projectile did to a body.**

**"Looks like a number of Heavy Infantry to me," Cores could hear Lieutenant Mills say from inside the Command LAV.**

**Cores looked down and at a screen that showed images from a small drone, a modified RQ-7 Shadow, that was doing reconnaissance up ahead of them. The drone was one of several drones the Expedition Force used.**

**"Maybe we could shell them with some artillery pieces?" Cores noted with a smiled.**

**The guys at Quantico had thought about everything. For situations like these, they had rebuild a number of STAFF rounds to act as artillery pieces and the railgun system of the A4 Abrams had the capacity to shoot them over more than forty miles.**

**"Could work," Mills said." Distance is 35 miles. We got ten STAFF rounds on both Abrams, should shake them up a bit. And some depleted uranium for the good measure. Maybe if we keep to the rest of the convoi moving while the Abrams shell them."**

**Cores grinned as Mills gave the orders.**

**Only a moment later the Abrams stopped and their barrels raised. After a moment there was the characteristic boom of the large cannon, and the STAFF rounds left the barrels, leaving a short trail of ionized air behind them. The air began to smell of ozone and after a few moments the next STAFF round was fires.**

**They stopped after firing their ten STAFF rounds, followed by a few uranium rounds before moving again, racing after convoy. Just as they began to move, the first STAFF rounds had reached the lines of the Doranian Heavy Infantry, detonating above the formations.**

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**"We're leaving Slipstream," Captain Garrett heard his helmsman say and he breathed in deep.**

**"Shields and weapons on standby," he ordered." Scan for Dilgar vessels. I want passive targeting solutions just in case."**

**Garrett still wasn't used to the new technology that had been build into his ship, but it heightened the survivability against most attacks. The small speech of Commodore Masaki had had its effect on him and the others of his crew. While Masaki had made it back into his homeuniverse, he wasn't simply able to get back into theirs. Something had happened that had seemingly copied _Sabre_ and her crew. One copy had been thrown into his reality, while the other had remained back and was heavily damaged by the Shadow ship, while likewise damaging the Shadow ship in return. If they would go home, questions would be raised.**

**It had needed some time, but eventually all crew members had voted to stay here. They all knew that Earth had won the Minbari War, in a fashion, and that the Shadows had been forced back, out beyond the rim and the Vorlons with them. Another thing was that everyone knew that Earth in this reality had enough problems and that no one needed to know about Shadows or Vorlons, yet.**

**The Minbari had become more or less integrated into his crew. They just weren't able to relate to their brethren in this reality. It was all too different for them.**

**"Contacts," he was pulled from his thoughts by his tactical officer." One Mishakur and six Targrath."**

**Garrett cursed silently. It was a problem for him to forget the Dilgar War, in many ways. Earth Force had kicked the Dilgars butts, but they weren't able to help much after what happened to their sun. For Garrett is was the source of a feeling of failure. Sure he had been only an ensign back than, but still...**

**And now he was leading a transport with humanitarian Aid to a planet with the last remains of the Dilgar in this reality. At least he had some backup, a Vigilante, _HMS_ _Daring_, two Pegasus, _JDS_ _Yugiri_ and _Mainz_, and two Monsoons, _Admiral_ _Charner_ and _INS_ _Parhar_.**

**"They activate weapons and shields."**

**"Threat assessment."**

**"Minimal armor, passive EM scan show that a good amount of energy is lost between reactors and weapon systems. Reactors show signs of insignificant maintenance. Shield power if fluctuating as well."**

**Garrett sighed. That was far from what he remembered of his service aboard _EAS_ _Hyperion_ during the Dilgar War, when he had been tactical officer. Compared to the readings he had seen back than, even if the different technologies were taken into account, those reading were pathetic.**

**"Get me an image of those ships."**

**And the actual view of those ships didn't help either, he thought as he looked at the image of the Mishakur.**

**"We're being hailed. Hailing ID indicates that we are dealing with the _Omelos_."**

**Garrett nodded.**

**"Put it through," he said.**

**As the screen showed a Dilgar, Garrett had to say that even the commander of that ship was far from being one of the Dilgar he remembered. That man looked more like a beggar than a feared Dilgar commander, just like his ship was far away from a ship that used to be feared by the League.**

**"This is Battle Master Len'dar of the Dilgar Remnant Forces," the Dilgar said." To unknown Earthern Fleet. Please state your business."**

**Garrett nodded to his communications officer and than looked at the screen, knowing that the camera was now taking his picture.**

**"Captain Garrett of _EAS_ _Sabre_," he said and looked at the slightly puzzled face of the Battle Master." We are here to transport relief good to New Omelos."**

**Len'dar closed his eyes for a moment and sighed.**

**"We cannot pay for those goods."**

**Garrett smiled a little.**

**"That's okay," he said." You don't need to pay. The goods were bought from money donated from more than one billion people on Earth. 25 million tons of food, clothing, every day utility good and about 5 million tons of spare parts donated by Nathan, mostly atmospheric scrubbers, energy couplers, water preparation systems."**

**The Battle Master stared at Garrett for a moment.**

**"Why?" he simply said after a moment.**

**"Because you need it. Its a simple as that. We have a concept called humanitarian aid on Earth. We like to help people who had problems."**

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**Commander Senkal was different from most Doranian warriors, very different. He wasn't a pure, a clean Doranian, but rather a half-breed. His father was a high standing Doranian, while his mother happened to be a half-breed slave, the result of the joining of a Narn and a slave purchased from the Vree, a so called human, a very Jurian like race. Senkal showed clear signs of the heritage of his mother, but rather than being thrown to the slaves, like so many other Doranian half-breeds, his father had seen something different in him, a sort of special project, to see how someone like him would do if raised like any other Doranian.**

**Senkal had to fight for just about everything. And he had gotten many of the things other Doranians had gotten, but one thing was locked away from him, the respect of his peers and subordinates. But he had learned early and very good, if he couldn't get respect, he would be feared by them. And fearing him, they did. He was one of the most ruthless and intelligent commanders and had the drive to make it high in the Doranian military.**

**At the moment he was the commander of a prototype Cruiser, one that utilized the same technology as the much larger dreadnoughts and he was part of a task force that was sent out to something many races and nature had failed to do. Destroy the last of the Dilgar.**

**During their War of expansion, they had come over several worlds and League Member worlds that had been seen as perfect prey for the Doranian Expansion. They had been low in number and sometimes their technology was more advanced than those of the Doranians.**

**But the Dilgar had attacked these worlds, the single right of the Doranian Protectorate and rather than enslaving the population, the Deathwalker, War leader Jhu'dar had destroyed the entire population of valuable slaves.**

**That didn't sit well with the old Protector and even his successor had harbored a deep hatred for the Dilgar. And now he had the chance to destroy the Dilgar once and for all. Just a few days ago, some scouts, send out into the Corian Expance after the discovery of two systems ripe for invasion, to look for more worlds.**

**Now it was the time for the Dilgar to perish once and for all times. And Senkal was part of the Task Force that would go to the newly discovered Dilgar system and destroy them.**

**For a moment his thoughts went to the Doranian home world, Doran, thinking of the many lives that had been lost there. Only a small part of him cared about that. He mostly thought about the fact that it had prevented him from match his wits against the race that had defeated the fleet three times to save their pitiful planet, the same that had forced them to reinforce the fleet currently trying to get to one of the largest deposit of CV Embinium in the galaxy. The money that deposit could bring into the Protectorate, could make them to the wealthiest star nation on the galaxy.**

**"We have reached the system," he heard his helmsman say." Ready to leave Slipstream."**

**"Drop from slipstream behind the fleet. I want to take a look first."**

**"By your command."**

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**Thirty lightyears away General Kerkal frowned. He didn't like to loose part of one invasion fleet because the Protector wanted to sate an obsession of his. Kerkal didn't care about the Dilgar, they were a footnote in history, never to become what they used to be.**

**He knew that he was in a tight spot. He had lost one complete Invasion Fleet to a previously unknown race, while the equivalent of two Fleets tied up to guard a simple planet. He didn't care if that planet held a large deposit of CV Embinium. And than there were the ships the Protector had pulled back to the Protectorate to help evacuating Doran after the catastrophe.**

**He was short of five Invasion Fleets and still had to conduct the attack on the Narn Regime. He might be the Supreme Commander, but he still had to follow the Protectors 'wishes'. But he knew that his fleets were ready and so what the time. The Narn had build up their fleet so what, but they needed to withdraw their ships from time to time, which left part of their border insignificantly defended.**

**Today was one of these days. Seven systems had such a lack of defense today and scout ships had notified Keravok Station.**

**The Narn would make very good slaves as the Doranians were much harder than any of those soft Centauri. And their technology had much of the Centauri technology, another positive thing.**

**Time to start the Invasion he and his staff had planned for a long time.**

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**Ami felt yet another headache coming as she sat in front of her laptop. Washuu-chan wasn't really making it easier for her and the Senshi. Especially her. Washuu-chan had seen some sort of kindred soul in Amy and taken her under her wing so to speak. And the entire research program that centered around the Senshi wasn't going to end soon, especially with some of the GDI generals and the 'Nerd Brigade' at the growing TIT.**

**At first the US Armed Forced had tried to find out as much as possible about their magical abilities, especially since Nathan had given them a few pointers that explained the origin of the magical abilities of the Senshi. It wasn't all that much real magic, but rather technology that forced reality to obey. In a sense Ami had always known this, especially with her Mercury Computer and her visor, parts of her Senshi uniform.**

**'All sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,' as the great Sir Arthur C. Clarke had said once.**

**It hadn't even been very easy to even find the multiple different implants in their bodies, as they weren't really implants, but rather additional nerve and tissue clusters that were indistinguishable from the surrounding tissue. Washuu.chan had needed a huge number of different scans to even notice the first of the implants in their bodies and how they were connected.**

**There still remained the problem of how those bio-implants had been put into their bodies, but not even Pluto, Nathan or Washuu-chan had been able to answer that question.**

**They had needed even more time to find a way to say what implant was responsible for each ability of the Senshi, but there had been several implants that had been very interesting. Rather than giving them more strength, speed and stamina, while in their Senshi form, those implants had reduced those.**

**According to Washuu-chan all Senshi had an active set of genes she called Ancient Genes. The higher than average strength, speed and stamina was coming from this set of genes rather than 'magical abilities' or 'technological systems'. The special implants were reducing those innate or activated abilities to a normal human level.**

**And now Ami was trying to find a way to deactivate those implants, maybe even remove them. But it was hard.**

**"Ami, Rei is being mean to meeee..." Usagi wailed in the background and Ami groaned.**

**Even if it may sound a little cynic, but the help they had done after First Impact had had a positive effect on Usagi, now she was getting more and more to her old self.**

**"Buy your own damn MANGA!" immediately followed a scream of outrage from Rei.**

**Ami just groaned again and hoped that they would get away until she had a solution to this problem.**

**"Eureka!" another scream, this time from Washuu-chan, echoed through the first completed TIT building.**

**"Seems like she found a solution to this Gate-thingy," was Makoto's reaction and Ami grit her teeth.**

**Was is to much to work in peace for at least once?**

**Silently she closed the laptop case, Washuu-chan had embedded her Mercury computer in and stood up. Maybe she could find some peace at the SPS tunnel at the nearby CERN.**

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**US Navy Captain Myles Kantor sighed as he walked through the former NATO headquarters, now the GDI headquarters. Everywhere he could see workers, ripping out the old networking systems to install a new intelligent network, scuttlebutt had something about an AI system that was going to be installed down here as the generals had found the intelligence of Shabazza to be a relief for most work.**

**After the first few days of the 'Earth Force Tech File disclosure', his proposal of the Monsoon variants and the 'Geek Days' at Edwards, he had been chosen as head of a small team of technical aware people, first at the Pentagon and now at GDI headquarters, the 'Nerd Squad' as most others were calling them.**

**For the last few weeks they had all brooded over a simple problem. The increase of yard capacity in orbit. The production of two Ferron Mobile shipyards had needed three month and it would need at least two and a half month until the next four were finished. And than it left the problem that ships larger than the Monsoon or the Olympus could only be super-build.**

**So the team had designed a completely new mobile shipyard. While being based on the Regula class, as the Ferron mobile shipyard had been called, it was capable of building larger ships faster.**

**It was centered around three Regula Central Modules and a single twice as large version of the Regula Central Module. The normal Central Modules were aligned in a triangle position around the large Central Module and connected by three three kilometer long yard bays, giving it diameter of about five kilometers. And than there were also six Regula sized bays connected to the smaller modules.**

**The best thing was that it used all the systems of the Regula Shipyards. No new systems, no new technologies different to the Regula. They would only need the complete capacity of the eight yards that would exist in two an a half month, for a single month to build one o the new McKinley class mobile Shipyards. And than they would make a huge leap in production capacity per shipyard.**

**The plan also intended to use the first McKinley to build a second one in the space of a month. Than both McKinleys would build two new McKinleys before the plan would change. After they had four McKinleys, one would continue to build other McKinleys, while another would build Regulas and the last two would build new ships.**

**The increase of shipyard capacity and the fleet would be enormous. Projections said that a McKinley could build three Warlocks, twelve Monsoons, twelve GODs and three Pegasus in three month in raw capacity.**

**Now he just needed to convince the higher ups of this plan.**


	36. Chapter 36

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 35

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**"God damn..."**

**Several of the Marines stared openly at the imposing figure that had just left one of the three Transmitter LAVs. The figure was about two meters tall and dressed in a modern version of a medieval armor. Thick shimmering green plates of armor over an elastic black material, the head encased by a likewise shimmering green helmet with the face hidden by a golden visor. One the Armor the Marines could see a Special Warfare Badge being printed on the right shoulder armor, while the rank markings of a Master Chief Petty Officer were printed on the left shoulder armor and the front of the helmet. On the left chest everyone could read the inscription 'SPARTAN-117'.**

**"Is this some sort of sick joke?"**

**Colonel Martin, the commander of the Marine Expedition Force on Rustoner asked as he walked up to the green armored figure and put his, smaller one meter ninety in front of it. In response the figure crossed its arms.**

**"Gee, so much for my great entry."**

**Martin narrowed his eyes, trying to look through the golden visor.**

**"Sorry, no joke, sir," the figure said and saluted." Master Chief Jack O'Neill reporting for duty."**

**Martins eyes narrowed further.**

**"What the hell is going on here? What is a frikkin' SEAL in this getup doing on a Marine operation?"**

**The helmeted head turned around towards the LAV.**

**"I think you can come out, Carter. You can explain this better than me."**

**The short haired blond woman in normal BDUs left the LAV, carrying a hardened milspec laptop. There weren't any rank markings on the BDU's, neither were there any other indications that the woman was part of the military. The woman stopped next to Master Chief O'Neill.**

**"Doctor Samantha Carter," the woman introduced herself." I'm working with the Master Chief here."**

**Martin crossed his arms so that he essentially mimicked O'Neill.**

**"I'm still waiting for my answer."**

**Carter fidgeted a little, while O'Neill never so much moved.**

**"Sort of a combination of life fire test and a publicity stunt of the Pentagon, Colonel."**

**Martin glared at Carter with narrowed eyes.**

**"Life fire test? Publicity Stunt?"**

**"Well... You see... Master Chief O'Neill is wearing the prototype of the new M244 Mjolnir Medium Powered Armor, primarily developed by the Marine Corps, but Microsoft and General Dynamics took over the project. And Bill Gates wanted to create a sort Real Life Halo Master Chief. And the Pentagon thought of it as a good idea. And Chief O'Neill was the one they selected after two month."**

**"Halo Master Chief?" Martin stared at O'Neill now, who was flashing him a Victory sign with his right hand.**

**"And than there was also Professor Habuki," Carter continued and O'Neill flinched ever so slightly." She essentially made the Spartan II project come to reality on Chief O'Neill."**

**"I'm still feeling that BIG needle she probed me with," O'Neill added with a shudder.**

**"And she modified his M244 a little. But the Pentagon wants some data and footage from a real fight between the Master Chief and the Doranians before they present the M244 to the general public."**

**Martin glared at O'Neill.**

**"Well," he began, showing a clear aversion against O'Neill," I don't think that I can do much about this. And open that visor. I want to know if you are making faces at me."**

**Martin turned around, while O'Neills visor opened up, showing that he was indeed making faces at Martin. That got a good number of chuckled and laughs from the Marines. Martin turned back around, only to look a the smiling face of O'Neill.**

**"Just that you know, O'Neill, I don't like this one bit."**

**"Neither do I, sir. I'm forgot to program my VCR for the new episodes of The Simpsons."**

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**"Slipstream Event," Garrett could hear his tactical officer say." Analysis running."**

**Garrett narrowed his eyes. As far as he knew the Dilgar didn't have much friends and no one was scheduled for entering this system, neither freighters nor anything else.**

**"Doranian Slipstream Signatures. I read a multitude of contacts from the ID catalog, mostly Cruisers with several Dreadnoughts. One hundred vessels. We have a small Dilgar patrol of several Tratharti Gunships and one Ochlavita Destroyer engaging the Doranians."**

**Garrett cursed. There wasn't any doubt why the Doranians were here. They were most likely after the Dilgar. And the _Bright_ _Horizon_ had just docked with one of the orbital habitats of the Dilgar, to unload some of its freight.**

**He glared at the tactical screen and cursed again as the icons representing the Dilgar vessels perished, but not without taking three Cruisers with them.**

**"Com, notify Battle Master Len'dar and the other ships," he said and paused for a moment." We are going to engage the Doranians. _Charner_ and _Parhar_ are going to guard the _Bright_ _Horizon_. We and _Daring_ are going to play sniper until the Doranians come into range of the other weapons, so I want to tie the targeting systems both ships via tacnet. _Yugiri_ and _Mainz_ get into flanking positions. I want the maximum of our firepower on the frontal arc."**

**He breathed in deep.**

**"I'd like the Dilgar on guard and flanking positions if possible."**

**"Battle Master Len'dar wants to speak to you, sir."**

**Garrett nodded and the image of Len'dar appeared on the screen. The Dilgar showed a face set in stone as he looked at Garrett.**

**"It is time for you to go, Captain," he said with a sigh." It seems that the universe finally finds the time to deal with our race once and for all. But we are not going without a fight."**

**Garrett snorted.**

**"Yeah right," he said dryly." As if I could do something like that. You are not completely able to defend yourselves and need the help. We are not going to leave. We stay and fight."**

**Len'dar stared at Garrett for a moment.**

**"I don't really know what to think of this..."**

**Garrett smiled a thin smile.**

**"Don't waste time with thinking. Act."**

**Len'dar cut the connection from his side.**

**"Our ships have reached their positions."**

**Garrett nodded.**

**"Commerce long range bombardment."**

**With that Sabre and Daring opened fire, their spinal lasers lancing out at the Doranian ships, while missiles were launched from both ships.**

**"Concentrate the fire on the Dreadnoughts."**

**Thrusters fired on both Sabre and Daring, turning the ships slightly as they fired at the Dreadnoughts, their high energy lasers slamming into the shields with a high rate of fire. The lasers had slammed into the shields forty times before the shields collapsed. The next few laser impulses went through the thin armor and the entire ship, to get through the other side of the hull, even through much less intense.**** Five times the attack was successful before the commanders of the Doranians ships began to make maneuvers to get them out of the area of attack.**

**By than the missiles, about fifty of them raced into the formations of Doranian ships, but less than half of them had any effect, leaving damaged, shieldless or destroyed Cruisers and a single heavily damaged Dreadnought behind.**

**"The are getting into range," the tactical officer noted after a few minutes, while the Doranias were decimated by the long range laser bombardment." And several Dilgar ships have moved into formations."**

**"Fire at will to all ships."**

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**Kotok was a simple world. It wasn't to large, nor was it to small. Its temperature was slightly lower than that of Earth, but one could live quite nicely on it. Kotok was a world colonized by the Centauri first, but they decided to bring many Narn slaves to the planet. When the Narn fought to free themselves from the Centauri the first time, all Centauri on Kotok were killed or hunted from the planet to become a Narn colony. **

**During the second Centauri occupation Kotok became an agricultural world as it had little in the way of natural resources, large farms and the like were covering a sizable part of the planet. With the second freedom in the wake of the Dilgar war, Kotok remained an agricultural world, but the Narn took it back, again hunting away or killing all Centauri.**

**Now Kotok was the home of about ten million Narn, most of whom were busy on their farms, working for the only real export goods. There was little in the way of a defense, as the planet wasn't considered very valuable and could be easily taken back from the Centauri. There was a single, lightly armed, space station and a few small system ships, mostly old ****T'Loth Assault Cruisers and Sho'Kos Police Cutters,** stripped of their Slipstream drives.

**Freighters were arriving to export the agricultural goods of Kotok, while the few systems hips patrolled through the system.**

**But that peaceful scene was disturbed as four complete Doranian Invsions fleets, four of twenty arrived close to Kotok. The space station was the first to fall, perishing in the offensive fire of one thousand Doranian ships. Cruisers entered orbit, their mass drivers directed at the planet to bombard major settlements and military installations, while Landing ships rained down onto the surface.**

**The few system ships encountered the same fate as they tried to fight against the Doranians with inferior numbers. Some captains tried to notify the Narn High Command, but they weren't able to get through the dense jamming of the Doranians. Likewise none of the freighters was able to leave the gravitic field of Kotok to engage their slipstream drives to flee to safety. Only one single Sho'Kos Cutter was able to flee for the asteroid field of the Kotok system before the Doranians could even see it.**

**Later there could be time to warn the homeworld.**

**The same scene repeated in four other systems close to Kotok, one of them a minor border garrison, where the Doranians lost a quarter of an invasion fleet to the Narn defenders, but the Doranian High Command had calculated with such things.**

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**"Damn it," Garret cursed as _Sabre_ shook from another hit midships." Get that damned Cruiser."**

**"Shields are back up," he heard his tactical officer say, while he heard a number of small secondary detonations from the Starfury bays, resonating through the entire superstructure of the Frigate.**

**It was the second time that _Sabre's_ shields had been pierced and broken down. Only the thick armor of the ship had prevented it from getting destroyed twice. The first hit had slammed into the armor protecting the engines and ruptured a number of reaction mass feeders to the massive Nova based engines, reducing the effective power to two thirds.**

**_Sabre_ turned a little to bring half of her arsenal to bear at the Cruiser that was trying to pass _Sabre_ to reach the few remaining Dilgar vessels. Bolters and railguns spit plasma bolts and railgun projectiles at the Cruiser. Even as the Cruiser tried to pass the weapons remained true to their targets. Finally the shield buckled and collapsed, with the bolts and projectiles raining down on the thin hull armor, opening huge gaps in the hull. Some of the bolts penetrated raction mass tanks and reactors setting them of to detonate in a spectacular display.**

**The battle over New Omelos had long since reduced to an uncoordinated battle. _Daring_ and _Mainz_ were floating in space, heavily damaged but with a number of survivers. But like Sabre they had shown that they were the best Earth could filed. Armor was a a relatively good substitute to shields, as they were protecting the ships long enough for their shields to come back online, while the internal bulkheads and security systems held it together.**

**_Daring_ for example had her entire starboard hull opened to vacuum by a Dreadnought, but she had continued to fight through three shield collapses until her shield generator had been hit and with it the reactor. Other than the reactors of most other races and like all EF reactors it failed to explode, instead there was a short lance of plasma venting into space. Two Cruisers had than gone and pounded into the armored hull for a minute before taking on Dilgar ships.**

**_Mainz_ had a similar fate, but she had continued to fight for several minutes after her shield generator had been destroyed. Now her entire engine section as a molten piece of slag.**

**"They are withdrawing!" the voice of his tactical officer screamed nearly hysterically." The Doranians are withdrawing!"**

**_Sabre_ shook a last time before and Garrett stared at the tactical display. He could still see two or three Cruisers fighting against some damaged Dilgar ships, but they finally left.**

**Garrett closed his eyes and slumbed into his seat as good as he could in zero-g. The fight had been a close one. The Dilgar were still a sowhat effective force, but their material was not the best. They had lost nearly half of their remaining ships, while the Doranians had lost three quarters, including all Dreadnoughts.**

**Today heroes were born, but not many had survived the battle that made them heroes.**

**"I want a full report of all ships. Make several copies of the engagement data. We need to let Earth know about it."**

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**"Home sweet home," Tenchi said with a sigh as he looked up at a large group of protesters as he stopped his rented car.**

**There wasn't much happening at Vega and the Ferrons had build up several complete Planetary Defense Networks around their planets with a surprising speed. Most of the satellites were relatively small platforms, not much more than a reactor, a heavy gravitic cannon and a computer control system. Most of them had been build on Reyan, the seventh planet of Vega, and the large industrial complexes. The PD Networks had been completed two weeks ago.**

**The completion had resulted in a less hard work with the 1st Expeditionary Fleet and Tenchi had enforced that the ships of the fleet were to come back to Earth for a leave of at least two weeks. Some of the ships were docked with Nathan, where they were going through maintenance, while _Dark_ _Knight_ had docked with Shabazza as she maintained herself.**

**Setsuna and K were currently on Hawaii, having a nice time, while D had remained back on Shabazza to act as a sort of relay station for him. That way he always got the latest news when it came to GDI business.**

**He shook his head as he dropped his disguise as elder man and left the car. He was dressed in civvies and if someone who knew him would look at him, they couldn't say that he was in his late forties now. He grabbed a duffel bag and shouldered it as he closed the car.**

**He shook his head as he looked at the protesters that were camping in front of the shrine that was now the Jurian Embassy. Than he snorted. The Minbari had set up their Embassy in Geneva, the Centauri in Monaco, with Londo Molari as their Ambassador, while the Narn had chosen Moscow as place for their Embassy.**

**Even through the demonstration was larger than four month ago, it had lost much of its quasi-religious strength. Sure he could see posters and the like everywhere, but there weren't many of those left who were screaming over the high fence that now surrounded the shrine and the Masaki home. Well, it could be the winter and the fact that the temperatures were a little below zero. And as most of the protesters seemed to come from Arabic nations, it wasn't really a surprise.**

**He sighed again as he walked towards the front gate. As far as his grandfather had told him, the first few weeks after First Impact had been problematic with Ayeka. The stress had gotten to her and there hadn't been a Ryoko where she could take out her frustrations. Now she had calmed down, but she still spoke against all what happened on Earth currently. To her Tenchi should still hand _Dark_ _Knight_ over to Jurai and Earth become part of the Jurian Empire again, as it should be as 'colony'.**

**But something was bothering Tenchi, it was the strange report he had gotten from G'Kar through a call from his grandfather. The old Narn was up to the same tricks as his analogue from the Earth Alliance universe and had watched Ayeka for some time. Than he had send a simple reference to _Dark_ _Knight_, 'Book of G'Quan, page 578'. _Dark_ _Knight_ had a copy of the Narn book in her memory and the look of the pace had creeped Tenchi out.**

**The page in question had shown a Shadow Battlecrab. Tenchi knew that G'Kar had seen the attack on the Battlecrab, but that had happened to fast for him to realize.**

**Than there was also the other part of the message. 'She was surrounded by living Shadows,' he had written in the Narn language with a capitalization of 'shadows'.**

**A small part of him wanted to know Setsuna by his side, but he had to deal with this problem on his own. But he would only do so when he had been home for some time.**


	37. Chapter 37

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 36 (Partly written by BrainCaster over at the Maximum Addventure)

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**The Ferron Pulser was a very interesting and very powerful weapon. And like its Earth brethren, there were many companies that produced these types of weapons.**

**Like the Tesanekal KP-31, a weapon the size and general design of the H&K XM8 carbine. It was a marvel of modern Ferron weapons technology, as it was a projectile weapon that fired ceramic darts at Mach 15 to 20, using directed gravitic fields inside the barrel. Each of the darts was 5 millimeters in diameter and 3 centimeters in length and made from one of two possible ceramics. Both of the ceramics were special the way they reacted to the gravitic fields of the weapon. **

**There was the AP dart, made from a special ceramic that got compressed as it was accelerated by the weapon and became twice as dense as uranium making it possible to punch its way through a good number of armors.**

**The HE dart was even worse the way it reacted. The ceramic mix became a violent explosive when it got compressed by the gravitic fields and even its the impact in soft objects, such a flesh or skin, made it detonate on the spot.**

**The KP-31 was getting its energy from a ultra compact fusion reactor, the size of a soda can build into the stock of the weapon and had enough energy reserves to operate for a week of continuous firing at its maximum of 600 rounds per minute, before the hydrogen tank needed to be changed. The weapons also had two magazines inserted into it at the same time. One with one hundred AP darts in the grip and one with one hundred HE darts in front of the grip.**

**It was impressive to see such a weapon in action as they were extremely silent, the ceramic projectiles making less sound than any earth bound weapon as they flew towards their targets at hypersonic speeds.**

**"I think you can stop now," Jack could hear a now familiar voice inside his head.**

**Jack just grinned like a boy who had a new toy as he leveled his two KP-31 at the next group of heavily armored Doranians and pressed the triggers of both weapons.**

**"But there are still some of them left," he noted.**

**"Well," the voice continued," you continue like this and there won't much more left."**

**"Isn't that the whole point, Daniel?"**

**Suddenly Jack was hit by several PPC blasts from the heavy armored troops, but they slammed into the shield of his Mjolnir Powered Armor.**

**"By the way," Daniel said with a deadpan voice," It seems that they get out of their shock. Shield down to 67 percent."**

**Jack turned around, letting the pulsars sweep over the Doranians troops to get the ones who fired. With a certain satisfaction he grinned as the pulsar darts slammed into and through the heavy powered armor that had survived hydras and most other weapons back in LA.**

**"Show of."**

**"Hey," Jack said as he jumped behind a large rock as his shield went down to 25 percent," What sort of AI are you? Shouldn't you be more supportive?"**

**Jack didn't even breath heavy as he leaned against the rock and switched the AP magazines of his pulsers.**

**"I can't do much more than giving you advice and some warnings from my position. I'm just along for the ride anyway."**

**Jack grumbled for a moment as PPC fire went by left and right of him and the rock. The shield needed a little too long to fully regenerate for him.**

**"Than make yourself a little useful and get some infos at the mortar crews. I need a little support here."**

**"I'm on it."**

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**Tenchi sighed and closed his eyes as he walked up to the front gate of the Masaki home/Jurian Embassy. There he nodded at the pair of Jurian Log Robots and noted that they had picked up moss.**

**"Azaka, Kamidake," he said.**

**"Tenchi-dono, it's good to see you back," Azaka said with a friendly voice.**

**"You have to talk with Ayeka-dono, we fear for her sanity," Kamidake added.**

**Tenchi sighed again and pulled his bag a little higher, his other hand instinctively reaching to the place where he had secured his PPC and the Tenchi-ken to his belt beneath his jacket. He shook his head as he noticed where his hand was going to and let his arm drop.**

**"I intend to talk to her. There are a few things that make he uneasy."**

**With heads, the logs would have nodded sagely, but as such they didn't really move.**

**"We can understand that, Tenchi-dono," Azaka said and the gate opened.**

**"Good to see you again," Tenchi said and entered the Masaki property.**

**He breathed in a few times as he walked towards the house his father had build but was relocated here by Ryoko and Ryo-ohki about two years ago. He stopped in front of the door for a moment before opening it and closing it behind him. He took a deep breath as he kicked off his shoes.**

**"I'm home," he called out.**

**Not even two seconds later he found himself in a bone breaking hug from Mihoshi, who began to wail at the same moment. As he slowly turned blue and fought from the next breath, he could see how Sasami and someone else came around the corner. But it wasn't Ayeka who followed Sasami.**

**Tenchi managed to take a deep breath, even through he was hindered by Mihoshi.**

**"Mihoshi, I need to breath," he said, slightly wheezing.**

**"I'm sorry," Mihoshi said and let go of him, only to wail a little more.**

**Tenchi sighed.**

**"Its okay, Mihoshi," he said with a slight smile.**

**He let go if his backpack and dropped it to the ground next to him, leaning it at the wall, just in time to catch Sasami.**

**"Welcome back, Tenchi," the girl welcomed him with a lesser version of Mihoshi's hug.**

**"Thank you, Sasami," he said with a smile and set her back down on the ground.**

**Than he turned around to face the unknown woman. Tenchi had a nagging feeling that hew knew this woman somehow, before it made click in his mind and his eyes narrowed. The woman looked exactly like he remembered his late mother.**

**"And who might you be?" he asked after a moment of looking at the woman.**

**The woman looked back at him. While she was hiding her emotions quite good, he could see them clearly flashing over her eyes. After another moment, she took a deep breath.**

**"I'm your sister, Tennyo."**

**Tenchi raised an eyebrow.**

**"I don't remember having a sister," he answered and crossed his arms.**

**"I..."**

**Before she could say much more, everyone could hear the theme of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Tenchi sighed and reached into his jacket, pulling a cellphone from it. He opened the cellphone and put it to his ear.**

**"Masaki," he answered the call before his eyes narrowed." What?"**

**He turned away from the woman who had claimed to be his sister.**

**"Damnit."**

**He began to massage his temple as he walked into the living room before dropping down in the couch that stood there. He nodded a few times and stared over the lake.**

**"You one hundred percent sure?"**

**Again the person on the other end of the phone talked for a longer time.**

**"We should set up a holo-conference," he finally said." We can talk better that way."**

**He nodded again.**

**"Okay. You call me back over the holo-com."**

**Tencho dropped back in the couch and spread his arms, his fingers closing the cellphone. His head dropped back and he closed his eyes and breathed in deep.**

**"Shit," he cursed and as he opened his eyes he found the tree women looking at him.**

**Tenchi frowned. Here he had hoped to get some peace and quiet away from Earth Defense and now...**

**"The Doranians just attacked New Omelos, while the relief convoy was in system. The escort fought back and we have a good amount of losses. And it seems that the Doranians have just attacked the Narn Regime several hours ago and captured five Narn controlled systems."**

**He sighed again as he looked into the horrified faces of Mihoshi and Sasami, while Tennyo didn't show her emotions.**

**"I need to talk to the heads of the GDI."**

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**"They attacked the Narn! What the fuck are they trying to do, pick a fight with the entire galaxy?" asked Jack Ryan, president of the United States of America in a rather unstatesmanlike way.**

**"Quite possible. It matches their psychological profile. The defeat of multiple fleets and their inability to save their home-planet are seen as a sign of weakness, and now they are trying to reassure themselves of their own superiority by taking on what are – at least in their eyes – even more powerful enemies. Doranian logic."**

**Even on the small screen of his laptop Ryan could clearly see how Tenchi Masaki rolled his eyes. Obviously the Commodore thought that the cats we're idiots, and Ryan was inclined to agree.**

**"Anyway, they're playing right into our hands. I'm transmitting the rest of report about the Dilgar and Narn situations. Goodbye, and good luck with the meeting."**

**Ryan closed the connection and switched of his laptop. He almost dropped it when Air Force One touched the ground and decelerated rapidly. Another country and another meeting. The heads of virtually every GDI nation's government awaited him. And as always it would be boring as hell. The more things changed the more they stayed the same.**

**He stood up and sighed with a sense of resignation.**

**...or maybe...**

**It was... slightly unconventional, but then, Earth was currently involved in an interstellar war after having nearly been invaded by giant talking alien (though not necessarily intelligent) cats. There was nothing that wasn't unconventional about the whole thing. Yes, why not...**

**This time Ryan grinned.**

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**The doors had closed with a loud WAMM, only seconds after the last photographers had left the room. It was now completely empty, except for the about twenty or so politicians sitting at a half-circle of tables around the center. After the representative of the host country had made a short (but still too long) speech, the meeting began. 3 politicians had talked for about 15 minutes each, supposedly making well-thought-out arguments about the Dilgar and Narn situation, but essentially just filling time and saying nothing in a very sophisticated way.**

**Then it had been Ryan's turn. He'd stood up, but hadn't wasted time walking to the small speaker's desk opposite to the half-circle of tables.**

**"Gentlemen," he had said, "we can sit here for the rest of this day and bore each other to death, or we can get straight to the point and get through with this meeting. We all know what happened. We all know what we're going to decide in the end, so let's do it now.**

**I hereby propose to offer a military alliance against the Doranians to the Narn. I also propose to offer protection to the Dilgar which is not only the right thing to do but will also, as your advisors have doubtlessly told you just as often as mine told me, provide us with access to some quite useful pieces of Dilgar technology. Anybody who agrees with this course of action, please raise you hands."**

**For about three seconds nothing had happened, the politician's minds struggling to process what they had just heard. Then, hesitant at first, more decidedly shortly after, no less than twenty-one hands had risen into the air. None had stayed down.**

**The rest had been a pure formality. Some details needed to be agreed upon, but that was a matter of minutes. Ryan still couldn't believe that he had really done it, and that it had actually worked.**

**"And Checkmate. That was almost too easy."**

**"Excuse me?"**

**"Aren't really paying attention, are you? Maybe that explains why I just beat you for the third time." Grushayov grinned wolfishly.**

**"Oh... yes, I was just thinking. New try..."**

**Three tables two the right, Jacques Chirac was just pulling a fast one on Tony Blair and two of his colleagues. Who would have thought the French president was so skilled at Poker. If their game continued like this, Britain might have to cede most of Cornwall to France before the day was over.**

**The entire table shook when German chancellor Schroeder slammed a big, respectable-looking black executive case on it. He opened the case, revealing a month's stock of beer, the bottles lying orderly alongside each other.**

**"My private reserve" he explained, "for longer journeys to certain coke-loving, beer-hating countries on the other side of the Atlantic."**

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**"... came to a decision after nearly 15 hours of continual discussion. Terra's GDI nations are going to offer military co-operation to both the Dilgar survivors and the Narn Regime, with only a few conditions that..."**

**zap**

**"... specifically mentioned the speech of US-president Jack Ryan as one of the most memorable of the meeting. "It is a shame that the meeting wasn't recorded. His speech was a little bit drawn out, but still one of the best I've ever heard." so Grushayov."**

**zap**

**"... described the atmosphere as "very relaxed and productive". Slightly puzzling was only Tony Blair's remark about "cheating at Poker"."**

**zap**


	38. Chapter 38

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 37

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**Tenchi leaned back and sighed as the holo-com powered itself down. He was grateful for this little thing from Nathans storage, that way he could have a video conference with the heads of the national space fleet without much problems.**

**For a moment he closed his eyes. The Doranians were a real problem. He knew their psychological profile by heart, but he never thought that they would go this far. Sure trying to stomp the Dilgar he could understand in parts, but why where they invading the Narn with so many other problems? He shook his head as he answered that question himself. They thought that the war with the Narn would be over quickly, but Tenchi knew the Narn far better. Even if the Narn would be defeated by the Doranians, they would fight back with even more and eventually free themselves.**

**And than there were the Centauri. With Kartagia on the Centauri throne, it was very possible that the Centauri would attack the Doranians just to prove their point that the Narn 'belonged' to them, after the Doranians had broken the Narn resistance and move in on the Narn themselves, only to get their asses kicked yet again.**

**Ryan had been on his way to one of the GDI meetings in Paris, invited by Jacques Chirac, much like the other heads of the single GDI nations. Tenchi knew enough about politics to know that they would be in for some very intense hours of talking. But hopefully they would end up with the proposal of military alliance of the GDI with the Narn and the protection of the Dilgar.**

**Sure they couldn't send many ships to the Narn, but they could send military advisors.**

**As he had constantly talked, first with the Admirals at Shabazza and later with President Ryan, he had failed to notice another female newcomer materializing before he had a begun to talk to Ryan, nor had he noticed that his grandfather had arrived.**

**"You are helping the Dilgar?" the woman finally asked and glared at Tenchi from her spot next to his grandfather.**

**Tenchi turned his face to the unknown woman. For a few moments he wondered why he thought that he had seed her already, before he remembered. He had seen her face in one of the CIA reports he and most of the other higher ups of GDI had gotten when the CIA went through the Galactic Files and compiled threat assessments, psychological profiles and others reports.**

**The woman was Airi Masaki, chairwoman of the GP Academy and as far as he knew the wife of his grandfather, something that seemed to be an open secret. That also made her his grandmother. The CIA had made a psychological profile of her from the informations available. So far they were describing her as being conflicting. Sometimes she had a short temper, was a tease, but very professionally when it came to her job.**

**And than there was the fact that she was a master of the Neo-Academy fighting style, a martial art often employed during discussions and negotiation. The techniques involved consisted of mainly slapping the offending party silly, as well as employing a cold, hard stare.**

**"Yes," Tenchi said a little tiredly." Its the right thing to do. By the way, nice to finally get to know you, grandmother."**

**In the blink of an eye she was standing in front of him, staring him down.**

**"Don't call..."**

**She stopped and her eyes crossed to look into the barrel of a small PPC held by Tenchi, who gave her a disarming smile.**

**"The Earth Force debating style or Gunboat Diplomacy as the Americans call it. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Works most of the time."**

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**"Jack you..."**

**Jack was hit from behind, letting him loose one of his two pulsers as he was thrown to the ground. He had just taken care of most of the remaining Doranians, but this was unexpected.**

**"Shit," he cursed and rolled to his left only to evade a heavily amored fist impacting into the ground where his head had been a moment ago.**

**"Okay, why does this remind me of that one time in Iraq?"**

**He tried to bring his remaining pulser up and against the unknown assailant, but said assailant ripped the weapon from his hands.**

**"Defiantly Iraq."**

**That was the first time, he was able to get a sowhat good look at the one attacking him and he was very surprised to find out that it wasn't a Doranian. Okay, the attacker was wearing a blue Doranian Heavy Powered Armor, but neither wings nor that thick tail were really belonging to a Doranian.**

**His attacker used the very short time where Jack did nothing to try and stomp at him with the heavy armored digitgrade boots of the blue powered armor.**

**"Not so fast, buddy," Jack said, his voice relaid through his suits speakers and caught the boot with two hands.**

**"Okay," he than muttered to himself," This was a god damned movie cliché."**

**His opponent didn't react to the threat as he simply ripped the leg out of Jacks hands only to stumble back a little. Jack used that to get back to his feet. He didn't bother with saying anything as he simply charged at his opponent, just to be grabbed and thrown over his opponents shoulder. Both his new enhancements and the suit was all Jack needed to land safety on his feet.**

**"I'm glad that we both don't really like the clichés," he said and charged at the other guy again.**

**From there the fight became a very intense display of martial arts training, with Jack using the military Hand to Hand style he had learned in training and used several times to save his bacon. His opponent on the other hand was using a strange style, that reminded Jack of Wire Fu movies, but this was Real Life.**

**"Jack," he than heard Daniel." When I tell you, give him a right hook."**

**"What?"**

**Yes, Jack was irritated. For a moment he wondered what Daniel wanted from him.**

**"Trust me."**

**Now Jack was a little concerned.**

**"Now!"**

**Jack didn't really continue to think about that and threw a powerful right hook with all the power of his enhanced body and the Powered Armor behind it. The hook got through the defenses of his opponent and connected to his helmet. There was a sharp sound of ripping metal as his head was thrown to the side and Jack could see how the helmet detached itself from the rest of his opponents armor and his head, flying away in a neat arch.**

**Jack blinked as his opponent froze for a moment, a pair of reptilian brown eyes staring at Jack for a moment, before he collapsed slowly like a huge tree.**

**"That is a Shin'bi," Daniel noted," I guess he is or was a slave to one of the Doranians here. Some sort of loyal bodyguard or something along those lines."**

**Jack blinked at the fallen Shin'bi and than looked at his fist, wondering just how much power he had behind his movements now.**

**"Don't Shin'bi normally have hair?"**

**"No idea," Daniel gave back." We only know of less than a dozen, so we can't really tell. He's still alive, by the way."**

**Jack breathed in deep and dropped his hands.**

**"So we got a nice prisoner."**

**He just wanted to grab his pulsers as he stopped.**

**"Does that mean that I have to carry him?"**

**"Well, I certainly can't carry him."**

**Jack just groaned.**

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**Tenchi breathed in deep as he put away his PPC.**

**"I'm sorry," he said," But I'm currently a little stressed out."**

**Airi crossed her arms.**

**"I take it because of the Dilgar."**

**Tenchi nodded and sighed. He knew what would come next. The Jurians had already protested, as had the Centauri and the Minbari. The Narn on the other hand hadn't done so much as protesting.**

**"They are savage beasts," Airi said and glared at Tenchi." They have killed many billion intelligences in a war to expand."**

**Yep, exactly the thing Tenchi had awaited to hear. He all but raised an eyebrow as he heard _Dark_ _Knight_ whisper in the back of his mind.**

**"I take it you say that mostly because they were using biologic and chemical weapons, not civilized forms of sterilizing a planet. Like orbital bombardments with beam weapons or mass drivers."**

**"Yes."**

**"So there is a difference between killing billions with orbital bombardments and killing billions with biological weapons?"**

**Airi stopped and became slightly pale. Tenchi shook his head and sighed.**

**"I think we shouldn't talk about politics of military strategy. I would like to know how you came here and why? As far as I know there hasn't any non-GDI ship arrived in the last days."**

**Airi closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in deep.**

**"Long range teleporters," she answered." And I'm here because of something important. Or rather your sister was, but she was waiting too long."**

**With that she directed a short glare at Tennyo. Tenchi raised an eyebrow.**

**"And what is so important?"**

**"Your new fiancée."**

**Tenchi stopped breathing for a moment. His eyebrow twitched slightly and he could feel a cold anger boil up in him. The same anger he had felt when he found out about Shadows and Vorlons and how they had manipulated just about everything in the EA universe. Back than it had been a hot anger, but it had cooled down over the years.**

**He breathed in deep.**

**"And who set this fiancée up for me?" he asked, not allowing his boiling anger to show, he even managed to control his twitching eyebrow.**

**"Lady Seto, the mother of Empress Misaki," was the answer he got.**

**The anger boiled a little higher and became warmer, but Tenchi didn't allow himself to act on it and derate Airi. He simply stood up, grabbed his holo-com and walked over to the door to take his bag.**

**"I don't think it would be the best if I got to know her these days," he said." Like I said, I am rather stressed out with organizing the defense of Vega against the Doranians and had a few problems with the Dilgar situation."**

**Than he breathed down.**

**"Maybe it would be better if I take the GDI offer and take an apartment in Brussels. I heard that Europe is nice this time of the year."**

**He bowed slightly before putting on his shoes.**

**"I hope we can deal with this later when I'm a little more relaxed."**

**He looked over to his grandfather.**

**"I believe you have my cell number."**

**With that he left the house and walked toward the gate. It was better if he could get some real peace. It wouldn't be possible at the Shrine between Ayeka and the new fiancée.**

**After a moment he took his cellphone from his jacket and dialed a number.**

**"This is Commodore Tenchi Masaki, ID Three-Foxtrot-Charley-Four. I'd like to request any available data on a Jurian noble, Lady Seto Jurai."**

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**Mary Pat looked at the man in front of her and waited. The man on the other side of her desk, that of the Deputy Director of Operations of the CIA, was Chester Nomuri. He had played a role during the Japan mess a few years ago. Now he would play a role again, through this time it would be a little bit different.**

**"Cultural Attaché?" he asked and blinked again.**

**Mary Pat nodded. The position of the Cultural Attaché in any human embassy was that of the head intelligence officer in a country and Mary Pat and any other high ups in any Earth intelligence angency would be damned if that would change in the new interstellar age.**

**"Yes," she said with a nod.**

**"On Jurai?"**

**Again Mary Pat nodded.**

**"You have worked in Japan before and we know that Jurai had a mostly Japanese like culture, so iot shouldn't be much of a problem to work there."**

**Numori breathed in deep. The position of a Cultural Attaché was not such a difficult position as the position of a filed agent, like he had been in Japan.**

**"There are a few thing through," Mary Pat said with a sigh." The orders are from the higher ups. You are going to get a few assistants on this operation through. Sergey Ivanowich Sachalin, of the SVR, Marek Daniel of the BND and David Weissblum of Mossad. I want that you work together like professionals."**

**Numori closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in deep.**

**"Oh joy..." he muttered.**

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**"That beam comes over there!" Jack Rily screamed before ducking under the heavy steel beam swinging from a crane just a few feet above his head." OVER THERE!"**

**The crane operator nodded sheepishly as Rily glared at him. As the beam swung over his head again Rily shook his head and headed towards the large hangar where this entire operation was based in, several containers outside of Mojave, CA. This entire project was based on Scaled Composites and the Mars Society. And what they build behind them was large, but it used rather classical technologies.**

**It would be the prototype of an independent Colonization Module the Mars Society wanted to use on Mars. These days it was much easier and faster to get to Mars than four month before. Hell, last month the NASA had asked the US Navy to transport some of their scientists to Mars. They had worked for two week there, before returning. But it didn't turn into the Media Spectacle NASA had hoped for.**

**Rily shook his head. The rumor mill in the scientific community talked about the fact that NASA would be down-sized, maybe even rolled up. Well, it would certainly free a good amount of good engineers and a whole lot of money the government was spending on the NASA. Normal boosters wouldn't have much of a future now, nor did the Space Shuttle or any other project of the NASA.**

**But still, for some time, at least until the first companies would build their own shuttles on EA designs, boosters would be the only thing to get satellites into space for reasonable cost. But most aircraft companies, Scaled Composites included, were already working to build their own shuttles. And from what he heard Burt Rutan had had a really insane idea for a shuttle.**

**He looked back at the Colonization Module they were building. It would be an ugly, cheap but working block of metal, foam, carbon and plastics. In essence both Burt and Zurbin had taken six hundred standard containers, like they were used in international trade, put them together in a way that they were ten containers long, ten containers wide and six containers high and welded them together, while many people were currently busy to build stuff inside the containers, like sealing them airtight, making airlocks between the containers, installing life support systems and a Ferron fusion reactor, others filled the rooms between the containers with foam, as isolation, and build a large structure that would make it more stable. The finishing touch would be the large windows in the housing units, labs and work containers as well as the grey hull that would make it more like a single block.**

**This was the first prototype and while they were building the _Mayflower_ carrier vehicle and the two other Colonization Modules, it would be tested up on the moon, with one of the freighter Monsoons getting it there.**

**Rily hoped that it would work the way it was intended to. Mostly because the Military as well as others were starting to be interested in variants of the Module.**

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**Miles Kantors eyes boogled as he stared at the computer screen.**

**"Okay, now they really started to go insane," he said out loud.**

**It really was Psychosama who had made a very insane suggestion on the SpaceBattles General forum.**

**'Lets design a real Big Space Battleship and show the design to the GDI,' was essentially what he had suggested. Of cause the debating had started and many of the people in the forum were jumping into this head first. Some of them were already talking about the weapons they would add to it, others debated what would be the best hull design, with the Trekkies ans Warsies duking it out already.**

**The best thing was that the threat wasn't even a day old and it had already gotten the better of two hundred replies.**

**Than he blinked again as he reached the last page of the thread. It seemed that the moderators had just created a new forum for idea like this as sub-forum of The War Room of all things. But the longer he thought about that, the more he saw how realistic that was. The entire technology that was going to be used was RL after all...**

**He sighed and for a moment he feared for his mortal soul and his sanity. But than again, wasn't the motto of SpaceBattles 'Ye who enter here, abandon all sanity' or something along those lines?**

**Maybe his superiors would like whatever came out of that 'little project'. It could only be big and armed to the teeth with large weapons and be able to 'Ram they 'til they give up'...**


	39. Chapter 39

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 38 (Partly written by BrainCaster over at the Maximum Addventure)

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**"Tell me this isn't true. Please?" the voice with the Russian accent sounded almost desperate.**

**"Well, I'm afraid it is." An American sounding voice answered.**

**" ..." (sometimes a short gaze says more than mere words)**

**"Our experts on Juraian culture assured me this is the correct way to address the Juraian emperor. Let's get it behind us and sign."**

**The two Terran politicians whose names shall not be mentioned here signed the paper. Though one of them was muttering something about "idiotic tree hugging aristosnobs with overblown egos" while he did it.**

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**"To his imperial highness, Emperor Azusa, monarch of Jurai and protector of the Galactic Union.**

**Furthermore bearer of the sign of the Tree, chosen of the Chousin, eternally anointed sovereign of the known worlds, vanquisher of giants and Invincible galactic ruler, ..."**

**The obligatory titles were all there. Very good. He wouldn't have to demand amends for their disrespectfulness, then. Azusa Jurai, imperial highness, monarch of Jurai (etc, etc, ) frowned. It was already bad enough that he had to endure the Minbari embassy addressing him simply as "Emperor of Jurai" in all their official dispatches, without being able to do anything about it (yet).**

**"..., great giant of impossible might, great hero of the tree, fantastic king of..."**

**Almost two pages of titles followed, each one more ridiculous than the previous. At least by Terran standards they were. Azusa merely nodded seriously with each title he read.**

**"... Misaki's cutest cutie of incredible cuteness..." Ah, yes... He didn't know why exactly, but he felt uncomfortable with that one. Maybe it had something to do with the muted laughter he thought he could hear coming from the general astronomical direction of Earth.**

**" and wielder of the royal sword. We greet thee.**

**It has been brought to our attention that you disapprove of our aid to the Dilgar survivors and demand we stop it. We respectfully ask you to reconsider this. The suffering of civilians should always be lessened. The villains responsible for Dilgar crimes have been slain long ago, and the survivors are largely of an entirely new generation. There is now no reason not to help innocents. We hope your royal wisdom will lead you to show mercy to them.**

**The GDI nations of Terra."**

**The signatures of about twenty people followed. Azuka had no idea who they were exactly. "Jack Ryan", Wasn't that some Earthern (or Terran, as they called themselves now) admiral?**

**Anyway, he was amused and slightly flattered. The Terrans were the first in almost a decade who had actually managed collecting all his titles without missing one. Maybe they weren't so uncivilized after all.**

**Then he chuckled. Helping the Dilgar. They were, after all just a few "innocent civilians". Hilarious! He'd never have thought of the Earther's – Terrans, he corrected himself – as naive idealists. The universe was full with surprises.**

**Very well, then! He'd allow them to help the cat-people. And than, when the Dilgar inevitably betrayed them, he'd grin in Tenchi's face and say something like "Told you!", perfectly demonstrating why Earth – err, Terra – should listen to superior juraian experience.**

**Azusa was so satisfied with his decision that he never noticed that one of his titles was missing after all, maybe the only one that was actually important:**

**"Protector of our colony".**

**Unbeknown to him, what he was holding in his hands was as much a declaration of independence as it was a polite request.**

**Terran diplomats were much better than the reputation they would develop.**

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**"We have talked with the heads of GDI," Admiral Kertal said as he reported to Thort Kelesh." The Doranian attack on the Dilgar seemed to be an action of genocide against the Dilgar."**

**David Kelesh felt a headache coming as he listened to the General who was currently the head of operations with the Ferron 1st Expeditionary Fleet, with Commodore Masaki being back home and the exchange of fleet units at the Asteroid Dion, who was currently close to Gol.**

**He breathed in and closed his eyes. The Ferron Kingdom was now able to send at least a few ships to Epsilon Eridani in a Joint Operation with the GDI. Vega was rich in its way. Everyone in the system had a job, the economy was going to get a boost with the new markets for their products on Earth and other star nations outside the so called Corian Expanse.**

**He leaned back in his chair. Maybe they would finally find out what had happened to the single colonization mission that had left the system more than two thousand years ago. They were never heard of again and so the Kingdom stopped any effort to get outside of their system. They had more than enough space in their own system.**

**His thoughts went back to the Dilgar. He had read about them and their war with the rest of the local area of the galaxy. He wasn't one of those who thought that they didn't deserve any help they could get. Sure they had killed several races in a war of genocide, but in the end they had done so because their sun was close to going nova and their leaders had made the wrong decisions.**

**The remaining Dilgar of today had learned from the lessons of the past and their new home, a dessert world with a very thin atmosphere, only served to change the Dilgar people. They deserved a second chance.**

**"What about out stockpiled of Planetary Defense Satellites and Space Mines?" he asked into the room.**

**"The Reyan factories of Nemesani Industries, Molusevel Gravitics Systems and Zernik Military systems are currently working overtime for the Planetary Defense Networks," Thorta, the intelligent computer network of Ferrol noted," We have growing stockpiles of both non-shielded satellites as well as mines. They announced that they are going to reduce their production as soon as the stockpiles of satellites and mines are going over the ten thousand units. That will be in about three month."**

**Kelesh nodded and looked at Kertal.**

**"Any luck with these 'Minelayer' ships one of the humans spoke about?"**

**Kertal grinned. About the same time as they were directed to the possibility of Plateray Defense Satellites and Space Mines, one of the officers of _Dark_ _Knight_ had spoken of a class of ships that was dedicated to 'mine warfare' on Earth oceans. Of cause Fleet Headquarters had done some digging in the more than eight thousand years of military history and found mine warfare the human had spoken of.**

**Of cause the people in Fleet Headquarters had been very interested in this kind of warfare and they were fast to order the design and development of mine layers. At the moment, there was a single Hyperion hull being converted into a mine warfare vessel. It would have the capacity to place a large number of thermonuclear, gravitic and X-ray mines along with Planetary Defense Satellites in a short time and would be able to find and defuse the same kinds of mines.**

**"The _Chaktor_ is going to be ready in about a week. We want to place her with the 1st Expeditionary Fleet, but I think we can get her to New Omelos along with the other ships we are going to send."**

**Kelesh nodded.**

**"And I'm a little surprised that Lesur is going to pour twenty billion Tanos into the Humanitarian Aid for the Dilgar."**

**To this Kelesh chuckled.**

**"He is a pacifist at heart," he said and Kertal nodded with a sigh." And an investor."**

**Kertal raised an eyebrow.**

**"I don't think that I really understand."**

**Kelesh grinned a little bit.**

**"Look at it from his point of view. If he invests money into helping the Dilgar, they are going to buy Ferron goods when they are back on their feet. Not to mention that they are going to be in our debt and won't dream to ever attack us."**

**Kertal chuckled and shook his head.**

**"A crafty little man," he said.**

**"Anyway, when does Fleet Headquarters send their task force to New Omelos?"**

**"An advance unit is already on their way. One Orpheus and two Hyperions, ten Frigates and twenty Corvettes. And two ten Mton freighters, one with relief goods for the Dilgar and one with supplies. We are going to send more later on with the _Chaktor_."**

**"Lets hope that we are able to help them at least a little bit."**

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**Battle Master Len'dar was still a little in denial. He simply couldn't explain why the humans had helped them. Everone else in the galaxy would have been gone the first moment after realizing the Dilgar Raid, without even remotely trying to help. And he could understand that sentiment. What his people and the old leaders had done to the local space had been horrible. Even Len'dar had learned that over the last forty years, especially Len'dar.**

**He also knew that his ships wouldn't have survived the Raid. Even with the humans help and sacrifice, he had lost half of his ships. Half of the ships that were in any shape to fight. Just about fifty ships of formerly eight hundred battleships and each ship a shade of its former glory.**

**If the humans hadn't helped them, the last of the Dilgar would have perished from the face of the galaxy and been reduced to a footnote in the great history of the galaxy.**

**He sighed as he looked out of the window yet again, only this time he wasn't staring down at the brown-red ball of New Omelos, he was staring at the crippled hulls of two human ships, _Daring_ and _Mainz_. And he could see the also damaged rest of the human fleet floating nearby, patching up the damaged ships for their journey home.**

**"Battle Master?" he heard from behind, again the same Force Master who had called him on the first contact with the humans.**

**"Yes, Force Master?"**

**The young Dilgar straightened. Like so many of the soldiers of the remaining Dilgar Navy, he had been born on New Omelos and the battle against the Dilgar Raid had given him more self confidence. Even with the help from outsiders, aliens, they had fought back an enemy that had threatened to destroy them all. Of cause he had the right to be proud of this.**

**"We have a larger number of Slipstream Events," he said." A GDI fleet has arrived. We are reading fifteen vessels. Energy readings confirm that we are dealing with at least five large battleships on par with a Mishakur in peak condition."**

**Len'dars eyes lit up with a slight feeling of fear. Would the humans try to avenge their fallen soldiers? He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in deep.**

**"I will be on the bridge shortly."**

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**Admiral Ricardo Scheidt stood in the Command Center of _Brazilia_, the mighty Ancient Class Assault Vector of the Marinha do Brasil, the Brasilian Navy.**

**Sure, his country had only gotten into space because of the Doranian Attack on Sao Paolo, just like South Africa had gotten their ships because of Pretoria. But it was still a space navy. One Ancient and two Monsoon Gunboats. Not much, but powerful and it was his small space navy. And his nation was one of the founders of the GDI.**

**And now he had been chosen to be the head of a rather controversial mission, at least in the United Nations, but those were still the old debating club and not able to do anything, unlike the GDI. He was now the head of a small international fleet that would guard the remaining Dilgar against attacks from the outside, in case the Doranians or anyone else tried anything.**

**Still it was a mission that could be very short. He still had to offer the GDI protection to the Dilgar. If they didn't want the protection he would simply go back to Earth. If they wanted the protection, he would remain here and send word back to Earth, where one of the Solar Trees was ready to emigrate to Epsilon Eridani.**

**"Admiral, we are being hailed by the _Omelos_ of Battle Master Len'dar."**

**Scheidt nodded. It would be a challenge for his new skills in Japanese or Intercosmo, his fourth language next to Portugese and German, his mother languages as Brazilian with German ancestors and English, the international language of Earth.**

**"Put it through," he said and tuned towards the massive view screen of the Command Center.**

**Only a moment later the face of Battle Master Len'dar appeared on the screen and Scheidt had to say that the reports were right. Len'dar was looking very much like most people in the slums of the large cities of his country.**

**"I'm Battle Master Len'dar," the Dilgar said." I take it that you have come to return your damaged ships home."**

**"Admiral Ricardo Scheidt," the Brazilian Admiral answered," of the _Brazilia_. Yes, we have come for our ships. But also for something else."**

**Scheidt wasn't all that surprised to see that the Dilgar was puzzled.**

**"Maybe you could tell me what this 'something else' is?"**

**Scheidt smiled a little.**

**"I'm authorized by the GDI nations to offer the protection of the GDI Navy to New Omelos and the Dilgar."**

**Len'dar just stared at back at Scheidt who continued to smile.**

**"Slipstream events," a technician said in the background." We are getting Ferron IFF codes. Our allies have arrived."**

**"Right on time," Scheidt said and smiled some more as he tirned back to Len'dar." Lets make that the protection of the GDI Navy and the Ferron Navy. We are not going to let you and your people down, Battle Master.**

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**Tenchi sighed and leaned back in the couch of his new apartment. It was in Evere, a part of Brussels and pretty close to the GDI headquarters. The apartment came with furniture and all the things you needed. They had even stocked the fridge and though about basic supplies.**

**And than there was the very high tech entertainment system in the living room, complete with large plasma display, 7.1 Dolby Surround System, a media center computer, hell whoever had put the stuff in this apartment hadn't forgotten to get an X-Box, Playstation 2 and the Nintendo Game Cube.**

**"I guess you can tell who put it all up," he heard a voice behind him.**

**He was a little startled at that, but only for a moment.**

**"Now that you say it, D," he answered 'his' avatar of _Dark_ _Knight_," its pretty obvious."**

**Behind him D grinned, moved her hands and began to message Tenchis shoulders. Tenchi slumped into the couch and sighed in delight, his hand grabbing the remote for the plasma TV. There wasn't much more relaxing than getting a message from a beautiful girl after month of hard work and a nice evening in front of the TV.**

**"... has just left her audience with Pope John Paul II. With this Ryoko Hakubi is the first alien to get an audience with the Pope. The Vatican has also announced that the Pope has forgiven Ms. Habuki all sins she has done in her life. Most people think that this is a direct result of her actions in Sao Paolo and Pretoria. Several Cardinals, even the arch-conservative Cardinal Ratzinger, have praised her actions in the aftermath of the Doranian Landings on November of last year..."**

**Tenchi chuckled a little. He could imagine that the Minbari, Centauri and Jurians would rapidly and vehemently protest against that, but in the end the Pope was one of the spiritual leaders of Earth and he had done similar things in his life, like helping the Polish people to free themselves from the communists.**

**Tenchi chuckled a bit more when he imagined the reaction of Ayeka, she would defiantly blow a vessel. For a moment he was glad not to be at the Shrine, but at the same time he hated not to be there. He had needed to talk to her, but with the stuff his grandmother and his newly found sister had tried to pull on him...**

**"... she will go to Geneva, where she had been invited by the Dalai Lama during his visit of the city.**

**"While the Dalai Lama is still very busy to rebuild Tibet, he has scheduled his visit of Geneva for about a year and doesn't want to miss the chance to meet both Ms. Habuki and the Minbari Ambassador Delenn. Several experts see that it is most likely to come to a confrontation between Ms. Habuki and Ambassador Delenn..."**

**"Confrontation?" Tenchi asked out loud." If this Delenn is everything like the Delenn of before the Earth Minbari War we might get a few problems."**

**Behind him D snorted.**

**"You should have seen her face when Ryan told her to buzz off and that the United States won't extradite a US citizen for crimes that are long since been expired according to international law and who has served her sentence on Earth in the worst possible circumstances."**

**Tenchi shook his head.**

**"I would pay good money to see what is going to happen."**

**They were silent for a moment before Tenchi began to zap through the channels only to stop at the beginning of an episode of 'The Simpsons', through in German, not that Tenchi had much problems with that language anymore.**

**"I think that the Dalai Lama is planning on the confrontation. He's a good mediator."**


	40. Chapter 40

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 39 (Partly written by Psychosama over at the Maximum Addventure)

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While he hid it well, Battle Master Len'dar was a man at the edge of a small nervous break down. One caused not by stress, but by confusion. The behavior of these Terrans was incomprehensible. While he did not wish to disrespect their kindness, a kindness no one other race had shown his people, it was intimidating. To a military commander, it is critical that one at least have an idea how to predict the behavior of those they encountered. Usually he could, but these humans? They seemed to act according to no logical pattern he could decipher, like no other race in the galaxy.

While most races would condemn them for past crimes, the Terrans made no mention of them. While most races would have left them to starve, the Terrans arrived with enough food and supplies to drastically change their standard of living, offering it without charge. While most races would have pulled out and left them at the tender mercies of the Doranians, the Terrans fought to protect them with the fury of a species protecting their own. And now, if only to confuse him more, the Terrans had arrived in force, not to seek vengeance upon the Dilgar for their lost ships, but to offer his people the protection of their fleet.

Through all of this, Len'dar was left with his head swimming. Why? Why were they doing this? Was it to secure the Dilgar as a vassal people? If that was their objective, he was ashamed to say, all they would have done was offer them a pittance of the bounty they'd already delivered and his people would have gladly sold them their souls. If this was an attempt to court an ally, then the Terrans were speaking to the wrong people. The Dilgar couldn't fight a war, they could barely fight to protect themselves. He just hoped that they didn't take the news... badly, when they were unable to assist.

Sighting deeply, he looked at them man on his main view screen. It was time that this charade came to an end. Before he could accept any more of their kindness, he would have to know why they were doing this.

"Admiral, before I accept this, I need to know why you were doing this?"

Admiral Scheidt blinked in confusion, responding like he'd just been asked a strange question. "What?"

"Why are you doing all of this for us? What do you want from us?" Len'dar replied, his strained tone of voice beginning to show his confusion and anxiety.

On his side of the channel, Admiral Scheidt was honestly confused. They were doing it for humanitarian reasons, what else did he need.

"Sir," his communications officer cut in, "We're getting a transmission from the Saber."

Scheidt nodded to him and a second line was opened, while the line to Len'dar was temporally muted. "Yes, Captain Garrett?"

"Let me explain to them," Garrett stated.

Scheidt paused for a moment, then nodded in agreement. "Alright."

Switching back to Len'dar, he stated, "Captain Garrett on the Saber will it explain to you."

Len'dar nodded and closed the connection, while hailing the Saber.

"Battle Master?"

Len'dar nodded to the Force Master at the communications station. "Yes?"

"They are inviting you to their ship to speak in person."

Len'dar stood up, and nodded solemnly. Regardless of what happens, he was going to discover the truth.

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Captain Garrett calmly sat in his conference room, carefully considering how he was going to speak to this Dilgar. Now, he knew from his own experience that the Dilgar were a proud and paranoid people, though in this universe they'd lost their pride and likely had gained a great deal more paranoia. Not that he could blame them, after all they'd been through, it was a wonder they were still alive. An unfortunate wonder that had not been repeated in his own universe.

Maybe it was just guilt that had him sitting here, in front of two plates of Swedish meatballs, one normal and one served with guacamole and soy sauce, but regardless, he was going to set this man at ease if only for the sake of his own peace of mind.

Breaking his train of thought, the door chimed.

"Enter," he stated.

With a hiss, the portal opened, and in walked Len'dar. The man really was a sorry sight, he had to admit. While over the comms he'd though he was a serious step down from the proud Dil'gar he had fought during the war, seeing him in person was like a blow to the gut. He was dressed in rags, and he had a stench to him that could curl hair.

"I apologize about the smell," Len'dar sighed. "Our air filters are highly taxed and we rarely have enough water to bathe, though I must say its nice to be in an environment with clean air..." Len'dar trailed off as he looked down at the table. In a voice that was almost a squeak, he managed to choke out "Is that... ombra?"

"Swedish meatball, actually," Garrett remarked, "There are just some things that seem to be a universal constant. Take a seat, dig in."

Len'dar nodded and slowly sat down, looking at the tray of food as if it were an item of religious significance.

"I haven't had ombra since I left Omolos," he remarked as he took the first bite. Len'dar paused, and a distant smile appeared on his face, as if for a moment, he was back home and that the destruction of his world was just a fading nightmare.

"Are you alright?" Garrett inquired.

Len'dar paused for a moment. "I am. Thank you." taking a deep breath, he sighed and added, "Yet another unexplainable kindness. I need to know why you're doing this for us. Why the kindness. We have nothing to offer in exchange for it, yet your generosity seems to know no end. I need to know why."

"Ideology," was Garrett's only reply.

Len'dar blinked. "What?"

"Ideology," Garrett repeated. "Humans in general, are driven by several major ideological concepts that define who we are. If you'd like, I'll describe a few of them"

Len'dar slowly nodded, as he enjoyed his meatballs.

"First, there is a basic assumption that is at the core of most modern Terran National Goverments, as well as part of the GDI's mission statement: sentient rights."

Len'dar looked at him in confusion.

"Sentient Rights are based on the assumption that all sentient beings have a number of natural rights, rights that are possessed by all sentients beings and that cannot be lawfully taken from them. Rights like the freedom of speech, the freedom of choice, to equal treatment under the law, to due process of the law, to participate in their government... the list goes on and on..."

"I don't get it," Len'dar admitted, "How can your government accomplish anything with those kinds of 'rights'?"

"That brings us to step number two of our driving ideological forces: Popular Sovereignty. Most GDI governments are based on the idea that all political power and authority are derived from the will of the people. We elect our leaders, based on the promise that they will act according to the wishes and interests of the people. If they don't, we elect someone else."

Len'dar nodded.

"Next is the concept of humanitarianism. Its rooted in the concept of human rights. The core belief of Humanitariansim is that people should help on another and treat each other with dignity and respect. If you see someone who is starving, and you have the food to spare, give it to them. If you see someone who cannot protect themselves, but you can, then you fight." Garrett sighed, "

"Thats why?" Len'dar asked, "Because of your 'humanitarian' ideology?"

"Yes."

Len'dar nodded. "So, I just want to go over this again, Terran ideology is based around the concepts that all sentient lives are in a way sacred?"

"Yes"

"That the will of the people is absolute?"

"Yes"

"And that people are responsible for those around them, and that they should aid and protect one another?"

"Yes."

"And unlike most species you, for some insane reason, don't limit this to your own race?"

"We've learned that is is far better to look for the similarities in people than the differences in people," Garrett remarked.

"Alright," Len'dar stated, "But that still leaves me with one important question, why us? After all we've done, why are you helping us?"

Garrett sighed and looked the Dilgar in the eyes. "There is an old human saying that I think applies here: 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone'."

One again, Len'dar blinked in confusion. "What?"

Garrett sighed. "I told you what you asked, and I hoped you've enjoyed your dinner, but we both have our duties to attend to. I'll give you a copy of our historical records, and maybe after you've reviewed them we can speak again."

Len'dar stood up and nodded to the Captain. He was right. They both had to clean up in the aftermath of a battle. He was glad to finally have an understanding of the Terran's drives, no matter how 'unique' they may be, but he did have work to do.

"I look forward to it, Captain."

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Sailor Pluto had closed her eyes as she stepped in front of the Time Gate, a device build by the most powerful minds of the V'Ampier, the Ancients. Originally designed to be a device to test a theory about time, they had found that it could be a very powerful tool, but also a great temptation. The 'Silver Millennium' faction of the V'Ampier, based on the Moon, had financed the device and so it was their job to send a guardian to guard it from use.

Sailor Pluto had done so for the last thirty thousand years, after taking over the job from her mother, the previous Sailor Pluto. It was a long time. She had seen how the 'Silver Millennium' and the rest of the V'Ampier were destroyed by the Shadows and the Vorlons before it actually happened in the Time Gate, but she had never thought that it would have such a high possibility that it actually happened. It had been a slap into her face and the actual destruction of her race, her species, had send her into shock and denial. Perfect for a being from the future to install geas into her mind.

She never really know how the being had been able to come from one of the possible futures into her present, but it had happened nonetheless. The geas had changed her mind, her way of thinking, only trying to work towards the goal of Crystal Tokyo. The same being that had gone back in time to install her geas had later come back in the form of Chibi-Usa and Wiseman had his ilk.

Now she was free of the geas, thanks to the tender mercies of her dimensional analogue, an extremely powerful telephat. It had been millennia since she had been able to think as free as she was now. And she could remember more than she would like, as the geas had screwed up her memories. Everything she had remembered before _Dark__Knight_ had come back, had been a perverted version of the real past.

She breathed in and for a moment she smiled, before intoning the sung prayer to the Goddess that had created the V'Ampier, her people. As she sung the prayer, she felt better. It had been millennia since she had done this. Of cause she knew that the Goddess Washuu really existed, but that hadn't stopped some of her kind to pray to her. Humans always needed to believe in someone or something. And the V'Ampier had been all too human.

She ended her prayer and looked through the dome of the Time Gate into the black sky of Pluto.

Than she turned towards the Gate.

"Show me Crystal Tokyo," she said.

As the Time Gate began to show her the Crystal Pillars of the city, she shook her head. That possible future was dead to her and to the rest of the world. It would never come to pass. She closed her eyes as she thought that it would have been a nuclear war between the USA and China that had resulted in the Great Ice, nothing more than Nuclear Winter. The remains of mankind would have been in Toyko and the life there would have been... monotonous.

"Would Crystal Tokyo have been destroyed?" she asked and the Time Gate showed her the answer.

She watched as a Shadow Fleet approached Earth. Shadow Battlecrabs were orbiting above Crystal Tokyo, their beams lancing deep into the atmosphere to destroy the city before a Dearth Cloud started to envelope the entire planet, its nanites converting the surface into nuclear weapons and detonating them at the same time, destroying the last remains of the planets life.

"Is time stable?" she asked again and the Time Gate answered by showing her a Mandelbrot figure.

She breathed in deep. Time was getting in to a special direction, but still changed.

"Will there be a danger of Shadows or Vorlons to mankind?"

Again the images in the Time Gate changed, but there was still a very small image of the Mandelbrot figure in the corner of the gate.

She looked into a large room that looked like it was somewhere in the Pentagon or something similar. High ranking Admirals of multiple races were sitting around a table with a hologram floating between them. She was surprised to see humans side by side with Narn, Dilgar, Ferrons and other alien races.

The hologram over the table showed a star map of the galaxy where a number of stars flashed white before going dark. The hologram changed and showed a planet she knew, Za'ha'dum, surrounded by large amounts of Shadow ships. Suddenly there were rapidly growing white hot spots in the centers of several of the Shadow fleets, washing over the black spider like ships before the image changed to static.

"Gentlemen," one of the Admiral said and smiled grimly. He was human as far as Pluto could tellö.

"That concludes 'Operation Shadows Dawn'," he continued." We have successfully destroyed about ninety percent of the known Shadow fleet assets, planets, colonies and other bases with Jump Bombs. It would be best to get to DefCon 2, before we purchase the Vorlons to leave quitely towards the Rim or we do the same to them."

Pluto stared. In that potential future mankind had all but annihilated a good number of the Shadows and now they thought about sending the Vorlons beyond the Rim. She breathed in deep.

"Where is that debreifing," she asked, her voice shaking.

The image in the Time Gate changed again, showing a massive black shape and zoomed out. Again she was in shock, as she saw the orange-yellow shape of _Dark Knight_ next to the large dark triangular ship. The Vorlon-Warlock had the same size as one of the main cannons of that massive vessel, and that ship had four of those weapons.

She swallowed as the Time Gate zoomed in on the large name of the ship.

_CBV-00 ISS Executor_


	41. Chapter 41

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 40

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**G'Kar looked over the impressive skyline of Moskow and the large domes of the Kremlin. He smiled a little, unconcerned about the masses of snow covering the entire capital of the Russian Repiblic. In the few month he had been here he had grown to like the Russians. They were a people that had gone through a number of similar hardships as the Narn.**

**He had had time to look through Russian history and he was impressed. About a century ago they had thrown of the absolutist government of the last of the Tzars in a revolution not unlike the Narns revolution against the Centauri. Than they had tried to govern themselves with a type of government that was unknown in the galaxy, Communism.**

**The first few decades under their leader of Lenin, it had worked great, but under Lenin's successor, Stalin, the Communism had been perverted into a dictatorship for the lack of a better term. Even while the Nation largely remained communistic, Stalin had become an absolutist leader. Millions of Russians had died during his reign and the large scale war they had fought in that time.**

**After Stalin, it had only gotten slightly better until there was another change. But even the change to the 'democracy' hadn't stopped most of the problems.**

**But those last century had made the people like they were today and G'Kar was beginning to like. Not to mention that the Russian language was made to curse or that their Vodka was one of the most potent alcoholic drinks in the entire galaxy, if not THE most potent one. And the Russians were able to take so much more of that drink than any Narn in the Narn Embassy.**

**He sighed and turned around to look at Gennady Vassilyevich Bisyarin, the Russian aide of the Embassy and the one who had managed to drink every Narn under the table. Than he looked over at Scott Adler, the American Secretary of State.**

**"I know that you can't send many spaceships," G'Kar said," but why do you think that you can offer us an Alliance against the Doranians? What can you offer to us in this?"**

**G'Kar was a bit troubled about the whole situation. He knew from his longer presence on Earth that they had fought back several Doranian invasion attempts and even helped another race, they haven't even really known at that time. And than there was also the Dilgar situation.**

**"Well," Adler started and looked at Bisyarin for a moment," We are willing to send two ships as well as a number of military advisors."**

**G'Kar raised an eyeridge as he chuckled slightly.**

**"I believe that we have enough knowledge about the Doranians and military action to fight the invaders."**

**"But you have to keep in mind," Bisyarin noted," that the Narn Regime doesn't have as many naval assets like as you would like to have. Much of the goods and money your nation makes is going straight into the rebuilding of your nation. Even after close to forty years. I think that you could need every piece of help you can get."**

**G'Kar frowned slightly. He knew that it was true. The Regime hadn't enough money to send a ship to get him of Novak Station. And the ship they had send to Earth, was just a small one, and they had only send it not to be outsmarted by the Centauti, who could manage to get their hands on this new world. Through G'Kar doubted that the Centauri could get the humans into joining their Republic.**

**The Centauri had nothing the humans could need. Mostly because of their youth and the newness to the galactic theater, they were completely independent when came to foodstuffs, raw materials or industrial goods. Hell, they had enough to send some of it to the Dilgar. And if they needed CV Embinium, or Quantum-40 as the humans called it, they could get it from their sole allies, the Ferrons.**

**G'Kar also knew that the human ships had faired very good against the Doranians. The had beaten then three times now and played with them at the Ferrons home system. And even if G'Kar didn't really like it, the humans had more experience in fighting wars, through as far as he knew the last large wet naval battles had been fought about sixty years ago.**

**"I see your point," G'Kar said." But I can't do much more than talking to my government in this case. In the end its not my decision."**

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**Washuu sighed as she leaned back in the park of the CERN, sure the TIT project was coming along nicely, but it would still be month if not years until the campus of the Terran Institute of Technology was completed. At the moment there were only a few building build at the TIT campus, one of them housing a Ferron gravitic fusion reactors that was also feeding the CERN and a part of Geneva.**

**At the moment the fledging TIT was residing in some of the CERN buildings and the administration was currently busy to pull themselves together to get the TIT working as fast as possible, even before the campus was ready for the TIT to be opened.**

**She chuckled a little as she looked over to one of the other already finished buildings. After she had finished with the project of advancing the Ferron Transmitter, one of her aids had gone and with the help of colleagues he had build several of the Portal Transmitters. Two of them were situated in the building she was looking at, a not really small dome of steel and glass, designed by several students of the Architectural Faculty of the University Zürich. Surrounded by a small square and rows of young trees, she had to say that it was anesthetically pleasing and would get several nods by people from other worlds.**

**Even with the human credo of 'form follows function', it didn't meant that they were unable to build beautiful architecture. The whole TIT would be like the Transmitter Portal, as the students had called it a conglomerate of buildings that wouldn't look out of place on other worlds, even if they would keep up with Earthern style elements.**

**One of the transmitters was directly connected to Edwards AFB, while the other was connected to the MIT.**

**A faint buzzing in the back of her head notified her that her computer was finished with that analysis she had ordered it to do. She had acquired some of the DNA of one of the talking 'mooncats' that were constantly around the Senshi.**

**She rolled her eyes at the thought of Luna. That girl was always complaining. 'We didn't do this, we didn't do that back in the days...'**

**She was too much back in the past, not in the present and, the gods be aware, thinking of the future. Artemis on the other hand was a pretty laid back guy and he too shook his head about Luna's antics.**

**Washuu sighed and called up her holographic desktop.**

**As she looked at the screen she blinked a few times. At the first glance the genetic material of the Mau, as they called themselves, showed all signs of being genetically manipulated beings, based on Earthern cats of all things. More to the point of the species caracal caracal, with genetic material of humans and several others spliced into them. Well, it certainly explained their intelligence and their ability to speak.**

**Than she blinked as she looked down at the datafile, and found a small message 'Match Found'.**

**She called up the match and the computer told her that it had a race in its datafiles that matched the genetic profile of the Mau with about 99.99 percent, a match that could be explained by genetic drift over several thousand years, especially with the active mutagens that were part of the genetic material of the Mau.**

**But still, she needed a real explanation how something like that could have happened, how the Mau could have developed that way. She called up the files she had on the sun of the Mau's adopted homeworld. It wasn't all that surprising to see that it was emitting large doses of a mutagenic radiation. In combination with the active mutagens it could explain the changes the original Maus had gone through.**

**She ran a short simulation on the DNA of Artemis, using the same strength of the mutagenic radiation and the active mutagens. The result was the same. But also interesting besides that. The complete accelerated evolution of the Mau had lasted about ten thousand years before the active mutagen in their genetic structure had changed the Mau to a new race.**

**A race that could have been a Great One, as far as Washuu remembered from datafiles on them. A bit xenophobic maybe, but the had had the potential to be one of the Great Races of the galaxy. But they had wasted their potential, their sun went nova and their remains were pitiful.**

**In a sense it was ironic that the Maus descendants were once again dependent on the humans. But this time she knew that the humans would manage to get their trust.**

**She looked over to Luna and Artemis, who were arguing about the something, while the Senshi were doing other stuff.**

**She wondered if she should tell the two Mau that the descendants of their race were known as Dilgar these days.**

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**"Those sick bastards," Jack called out and looked down on the still blue armored and unconscious form of the black Shin'bi he had beaten about two hours ago and than carried back to the camp.**

**"You got that right," Lieutenant Janet Frasier, the resident doctor of the Rustoner Expedition said with a frown on her face.**

**For a moment she looked over to the advanced Earth Alliance Medical Equipment Dark Knight had given to the Expedition. It included a very portable CAT scanner the size of a medics bag that worked an pretty much every living and unliving object and could even be used to find people underneath collapsed buildings.**

**The large, foldable organic display showed a three dimensional representation of the black Shin'bis body and his Doranian build heavy armor. It also showed several cavities in his body where some of his organs should be, like his digestive tract, and several thick tendrils that were sneaking through his body, linked to neural clusters that were part of the Shin'bi anatomy as well as several parts of his brain.**

**The Doranians had literally fused the humanoid dragon with the Heavy Armor in a way that he wouldn't survive without the life support systems in the armor.**

**"It gets better," they could hear Daniel say from the external speakers of Jack's Mjolnir suit." They managed to override his personality with a rudimentary AI using parts of his brain and consciousness. He was essentially forced to fight for them. Even if he would have wanted to kill himself, the AI wouldn't let him."**

**Around him they could hear several of the Marines growling and cursing. Daniel had managed to connect to the Doranian armors computer systems after Carter had helped him. She had been part of the team that had worked on similar armors after the Battle of LA, so she and Daniel knew what they were working with.**

**"Can you do something?"**

**"Well..."**

**Daniel hesitated for a few moments.**

**"I can delete parts of the AI, but a number of its systems run his life support systems. Without them, he will die. Very slowly at that. I figure if the Doranians wanted to, they could have stretched his dying over several month and making it very painful."**

**Jack frowned again and stood up. He tried to imagine how the unnamed Shin'bi felt and thought while the Doranians used his body as fighting machine. It also showed him what everyone would have to endure when the Doranians managed to take Earth or the Vega system. Slavery and experiments like the one with the Shin'bi.**

**"Can we do anything?" he heard Carter ask.**

**He hadn't heard her coming into the command LAV that was used as mobile medical station for injured before they were transferred off-moon via transmitter. She had left after she had understood just what the Doranians had done to their 'slave'. He was pretty sure that she had thrown up somewhere outside.**

**"We can't remove the armor without killing him," Daniel noted." And we certainly can't remove all of the AI without killing him."**

**"Maybe we should kill him?" a Marine said." That isn't a life..."**

**Jack closed his eyes, remembering the quip he had thrown after carrying him in the camp.**

**'He followed me home. Can I keep him?'**

**But even the Jack O'Neill sarcasm was running dry. The situation was too much out there. Okay sure he could make a 'Darth Vader' comment, but he didn't think that it was right to do it.**

**"We should ask him," Colonel Martin said." Its his life. Daniel, delete what you can of the AI. But make sure that he can survive with as less as possible of it."**

**"I'm on it, Sir."**

**Jack looked back at the Doranian. He didn't know him, nor did he know much about his race. But from what he knew from TV, CNN footage on the Shin'bi mostly, they were a proud race. He doubted that he would chose death, but rather kick the Doranians asses. If he was still sane that was. Jack doubted that he could stay same if he was in the same situation.**

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**"Narn space..." Ramsey noted as he looked at Admiral Macuso.**

**_Nautilus_ had arrived a day ago from her last assignment, scouting Doranian space and disrupting Doranian transports. Macuso had called them back, previous the GDI talk as he seemed to have thought that something like this would happen. The two stealthed Monsoons would continue to drop satellites and do recon.**

**_Nautilus_ had scouted more than a hundred Doranian systems in the last month and dropped sensory satellties the a quarter size of a Starfury in each of them. Hell, they had even gone back to the Doranian homes ystem to drop a sat. The sats had been build by Nathan, but were EFNI designes from the Earth Force universe. The sats were stored were the sensory drones would be stored on attack and other missions. For the new mission they would get half a load out on sensory drones and half of sats, making it six drones and twenty five sats.**

**While they were in Doranian space, they had increased the data bank on Doranian ships to more than a hundred thousand military and civilian ships. The kill list had also gone up to about a hundred Doranian Claw-class Cruisers, thirty Pride Leader-class Dreadnoughts and about twenty Shell class landing ships. Not to mention about two hundred million tons worth of supply capacity. Of cause the missile stock needed to be refilled.**

**"Yes," Macuso said with a nod," GDI is going to be allied with the Narn against the Doranians and we are going to help them with the invasion."**

**"We don't have enough ships for something like that."**

**Macuso grinned.**

**"Why do you think we send _Nautilus_?"**

**Ramsey shook his head. Macuso was right on this. _Nautilus_ had shown that she was very effective in disrupting supply lines and if they could do the same in Narn space, they could manage to hold of the Doranian invasion sowhat. Supplies would be needed by the Doranians to keep going. That was a simple truth of war.**

**"True," Ramsey said after a while." But do we get those Marines? My spooks would like to get my hands on a Doranian ship and its datacores."**

**Macuso chuckled.**

**"You will get your Marines. And you will need to carry some military advisors to Narn space."**

**Ramsey raised an eyebrow.**

**"CIA?"**

**"Amoung others. Also Mossad, FSB and some real military men, Marines, Navy and the like."**

**Ramsey flinched a little at the mentioning if the Russian Foreign Security Service. He hoped that their military advisors, most likely KGB agents, wouldn't see through his masquerade as his younger self. Well, not really masquerade, but he hoped they wouldn't know him for who he used to be.**

**"I take it that there will be a few Narn observers when we loaded of the Advisors."**

**"Most likely."**

**"And the other ship?"**

**Macuso grinned.**

**"Might be interesting for you, but the Germans volunteered one of their ships, the _Bismark_, an Ancient, is coming with you. She's going to be under the command of Kapitän zur See Karl-Heinz Gruber."**

**Ramsey raised an eyebrow. The _Bismark_ used to be called _Graf_ _Zeppelin_, but after he had brought back Joachim von Bismark, the Germans had renamed the ship.**

**"What became of Fürst von Bismark," he than asked.**

**"He is working at GDI HQ as advisor on the Doranians."**

**"And the Shin'bi?"**

**"Most of them are in Brussels as well. We are currently debating whether or not to send a ship to their homeworld. We had already radio contact with the race of some of the other former slaves, the Nomads. They said that they would come to get them."**

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**'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'**

**That human saying was running through Len'dars head for quite some time now, ever since he had read about some of the things the humans had done to their own race in several wars. He shook his head.**

**The humans had had more wars in the last century of their own time table than local space had in the last millennium, simple invasions of far less advanced races not included. He had to wonder how the humans had made it through that many wars without being changed from being as idealistic as they were.**

**Maybe it was because the humans hadn't as long lives as most of the other races, much like the Dilgar or some other races in local space.**

**But as idealistic as the humans were, they were as vicious. He had read something that had been called 'Endlösung' in a war that had ended sixty human years ago. The industrial, more personal genocide of an ethnic group by another. More than six million of these 'jews' had been killed by those 'Nazis'. Those 'Nazis' had even kept logistic lists of the people they had killed, documents kept even after the end of the war with the 'Nazis' loosing it.**

**It was far more personal than anything War Leader Jha'dur had done in the sectors she had invaded. But at the same time even more impersonal. Len'dar had thought that Deathwalker had made the way of genocide into something akin to an art form, but those Nazis had gone a step further. He had to shudder at the mere thought of it.**

**But it wasn't only those long dead Nazis. It was the reasons they had fought wars. Ideological reasons, religious reasons and many others. And this 'Cold War' between the United States and the Sovietunion was looked very much like the current situation between the Union and the Federation. Only that no side would collapse in the end from economic overexertion.**

**He closed his eyes for a moment.**

**"Armis give me strength," he muttered under his breath." Serity give me guidance."**

**He shook his head for a moment. It had been a long time since he had called onto the Old Gods like this.**

**He breathed in deep and opened his eyes again.**

**He hadn't only found things like the 'Endlösung' in the documents, but also other things that showed him the strange dual nature of the humans. One of them was the 'Geneva Convention', a document that regulated how the humans would treat any prisoners of war or wounded, or how they expected their wounded and prisoners of war to be treated. It even prohibited a number of weapons, such as chemical weapons. The direct result of the 'Geneva Convention' was the foundation of an organization called the Red Cross, one of their humanitarian organization that specialized in helping the wounded and ill. And it was deeply rooted in many of the human nations and ethnic groups.**

**Than there was their large ethnic diversity. There were a huge number of ethnic groups on Earth, groups that had stayed apart from each other for centuries and hadn't had the time to mix or annihilate each other like it had happened on so many other worlds, Omelos included.**

**He shook his head again.**

**Even if he could understand the humans partly, the documents started many more questions for him.**

**He breathed in deep. He didn't exactly know why, but something in him said that he should trust the humans.**


	42. Chapter 42

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 41

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**"Another thing... He was completely fused into that armor. There are no seams to open the armor like with the armor we know from LA. It seems he can only remove the helmet, nothing more."**

**Jack looked at the Shin'bi again.**

**"You think that we can help him in any way?"**

**"Well, I'm pretty sure that Washuu would be able to help him... But..."**

**Jack nodded.**

**"Can you wake him, Daniel?"**

**Daniel didn't say anything for a few moments.**

**"Uhm... He is already awake..."**

**Jack blinked and more than one of the Marines standing at the hatch of the LAV, as well as Janet and Carter stared at Jack or rather at the AI, they knew was in Jacks Mjolnir suit.**

**"Stop staring at me," Jack ordered irritated.**

**At his sudden, but understandable outburst, the stares were directed at the Shin'bi laying on the medical table of the LAV. The Shin'bi slowly cracked open his eyes, his face twisting into the Shin'bi version of a sad smile.**

**"Thank you," he said in understandable English.**

**"He got a translator," Daniel noted absentmindedly as everyone was focused on the Shin'bi.**

**Slowly and without making any move that could be interpreted as hostile, mostly because of the three Pulsers now directed at him, as well as his own feeling, the Shin'bi pushed up to sit on the table, careful not to damage anything in the LAV with his enhanced strength.**

**"Are you okay?" Janet asked and looked back at the screen of the CAT scanner, noting that not much had changed from his 'unconsciousness' state.**

**"As okay as I can be," was the answer.**

**Jack observed the black Shin'bi. He didn't completely trust him. Jack knew that it was hard to remain sane after a treatment he had gotten. Being forced to watch while his body was controlled by Shin'bi.**

**The Shin'bi was breathing calmly as he looked back at the humans, his supposed saviors. The way how he looked at each and everyone of them could only be described as stoic, even knowing that he was the way he was, he seemed to be in complete control.**

**"I have been consciousness for some time," the Shin'bi continued with a level voice." And I have heard that you wanted to... relieve me from my suffering."**

**Jack swallowed slightly, ready to do anything if the Shin'bi should try to fight them after getting it wrong. The Shin'bi didn't make any threatening moves and bowed his head slightly.**

**"I thank you for your concern, but I am honor bound to seek retribution. As I am in a life debt with you."**

**On the last bit, he looked directly at Jack, who could only blink.**

**"The Shin'bi are very close to the Japanese in their culture," Daniel whispered to Jack." I don't think that he can be purchased to forget that 'life debt'."**

**"What is your name?" Daniel than asked over the external speakers of Jacks suit.**

**"My name is Shugoryuu," the Shin'bi answered.**

**The humans and the Shin'bi looked at each other for several minutes, before Jack broke out in a grin.**

**"Cool, I always wanted to have my own Ninja Dragon. Much cooler than a Ninja Turtle."**

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"Slipsteam Event."

Admiral Scheidt looked over to the sensory officer, Lieutenant Merdano.

"Is it Zerberoff?"

Merdano looked at this displays fore a few moment until he nodded.

"Yes, it is the Solar Tree."

Scheidt nodded to himself.

Zerberoff was one of the eldest and largest of the Solar Trees that had come to Earth, while its brethren were still out in the Kuiper Belt and couldn't be purchased to come into the inner system. But according to Shabazza, there was a growing number of those who had heard of what happened and would eventually follow Shabazza's group.

"Send him greeting and ask if he had a good journey," he than ordered his communications officer.

"He says that he is well and that the journey was interesting. He also notifies us that the _Yeong_ _Choi_ is ready to return to Earth."

Again Scheidt nodded. Up to date only the Ancient class ships, build by the Ancients themselves, preserved and than given to Earth by Nathan, were able to enlarge their Slipstream Field to move an object the size of a Solar Tree. And Zerberoff was about fourty five kilometers in diameter.

"He is ready to enter an orbit around New Omelos."

Scheidt chuckled as he imagined what the Dilgar would say to Zerberoff. He was unique, as he had grown from two seeds that had come down to the same core at the same time. He was more or less a dual being, two trees in one, with two separate minds that could act as one if they wanted to.

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**Len'dar was still deep in thought as his aide, Force Master Dar'nen, entered his room, his eyes wide from what ever he had seen.**

**"Battle Master," Dar'nen all but stuttered." A large object just entered the system."**

**Len'dar blinked.**

**"What?"**

**The Force Master swallowed hard for a moment and breathed in deep.**

**"It is better you look at it by yourself, Battle Master."**

**Len'dar narrowed his eyes. He was pretty sure that Dar'nen had been much less nervous since the battle with the Doranians, so what was it that had resulted in a nearly completely insecure Dar'nen.**

**Len'dar stood up and followed Dar'nen onto the bridge of the _Omelos_. The bridge was much more hectic than it had been during the arrival of the human and Ferron fleets. On the center of the main viewscreen and in several holographic displays he could see something he had never seen. And especially not of this size.**

**He swallowed as he looked at the data that were presented on the holograms and the infos that were added to them. The object that had left Slipstream and was now heading for new Omelos was a giant tree that rooted on an asteroid. There was nothing that looked like a slipstream drive, through a human ship was moving away from the tree and entered slipstream to go home. No visual means of propulsion.**

**"We are being hailed by the... tree?"**

**"We are Zerberoff," a strange dual sounding voice sounded from the speakers, only to change to a single deep male voice." I am here to help you."**

**The voice changed again, to a rich female voice.**

**"I am here to act as space station and orbital habitat for the space born part of your people."**

**"Have no fear."**

**The last part of the voice was the strange dual voice again, as if the male and female voices were speaking at the same time.**

**Len'dar closed his eyes for a moment.**

**"We are also hailed by _Brazilia_."**

**A holographic display appeared in front of Len'dar, showing the Brazilian Admiral and head of the human fleet guarding New Omelos.**

**"Another part of the Protection," he noted with a grin." Through Zerberoff has volunteered for being the orbital habitat. As far as I know he can be the home of about two million people, three million if stretched."**

**Len'dar breathed in deep. He really didn't know what he should think now.**

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**"Multiple Slipstream Events!"**

**Admiral Robbie Jackson cursed as he nearly spilled his coffee after the rather loud announcement of Seiler. In fact he spilled enough of it to get some of the hot black liquid on his fingers. He rapidly placed the Styrofoam cup on a nearby table to shake his hand, before directing a short glare at Seiler.**

**"Doranians?"**

**Seiler looked at the screen before licking his lips a little nervously.**

**"Uhm... No, sir."**

**Jackson gave him another glare.**

**"Than who is it?"**

**"We don't have a positive ID yet. Slipsstream even was about three light seconds outside of Moon orbit. We need a little time. But it seems that we have one extremely large contact, sir."**

**Jackson took his coffee cup again and moved towards the large plot table in the center of Earth Defense Command. He was a little annoyed that this room got a new name every week or so, sometimes even the same as it had once or twice before.**

**"Can I get an image of whatever we got out there?"**

**"Yes, sir."**

**A holographic projection appeared above the plot table and Jackson blinked. The large object on the display was an extremely large spherical asteroid with a good part of it being artificial in nature. A small numeric display next to it showed that the object was very large, about fifty kilometers in diameter and the energy production of the asteroid was extremely high.**

**"Sir, thats not a moon. Thats a..."**

**"Seiler?" Jackson interrupted him with a glare before he could finish.**

**"Sir?"**

**"Don't. Simply DON'T!"**

**"Yes, sir."**

**Jackson looked back at the display for a few moments until additional displays appeared next to the large asteroid, showing a number of space ships of all kinds. He could identify some of the ships displayed. A Jurian Treeship, a Minbari Sharlin, a Centauri Vorchan, a GP transport and several other of the local races. But all had one thing in common. Their hulls looked like they had been repaired and custonized.**

**"Sir," Seiler noted after a few more moments." We are bing hailed by the... spacestation."**

**Jackson glared at Seiler again.**

**"Didn't I say something, Seiler?"**

**"Sorry, sir. Couldn't resist, sir."**

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**Catall closed her eyes as she looked at the display in the Hemls Center of _The Home_. In the center of the display she could see a blue-green-brown-white marble of a planet that was named Earth. She knew a little about the Corian Expanse, mostly because _The Home_ had crossed it several times in the last eight thousand years. There shouldn't be a planet here that was colonized, no planet that would be possible to colonize. Yet here they were looking at exactly such a planet, full of life in the center of the life devoid Corian Expanse.**

**She breathed in deep. Maybe that planet had been there at all times, maybe if her people had found it earlier, it wouldn't have been colonized and free for them to colonize. But it was unnecessary to think about something like this.**

**Catall was the ****High Sideryt of her people. The elected leader of all Nomads. She, like her predecessors had been charged with guiding their people through the void of space, trying to find a place for them to live. But even after more than eight millennia, it was still a problem to find a place. Even if they stuck to uncharted space, they couldn't find a single planet. On the other side her people had gotten used to live on _The Home_ after all these years, going as far as adapting to the sections with no gravity.**

**For a moment she remembered the history lessons from way back. Their old homeworld had too look very much like the planet in front of her, before it was destroyed by its sun going nova. Their ancestors had known more than a century before it went nova and had the time to discover new technologies to try and evacuate at least a part of the population. One of the smaller moons of the old homeworld had been converted into a giant space ship, _The Home_, and send towards the next star, where she arrived two centuries later, crossing ten lightyears of deep space.**

**The Ancestors had hoped to find a planet that could support them all, but they found a planet that was was home of a Quantum 0 civilization that all but hunted them away, but not without giving them a Slipstream Drive to get away as fast as possible. Since than her people had searched for a new homeworld.**

**Catall sighed. She could already see the reaction of the natives. Through they had rescued some of her people from slavery, they would give her those former slaves and than send them on their way, like all the other races had ever done. Who could really need the Nomads for anything else than cheap labor in space, the only thing they could really give to anyone?**

**She breathed in deep and closed her eyes for a moment, before she let her hands glide over the smooth fabric of the cloak that announced her status to the fourty million of her people. The only thing that set her apart from the rest of her people. The only piece of clothing, aside from space suits, that would be ever worn by a Nomad.**

**"Open a channel," she ordered with her smooth voice, underlayed with the constant light growl that was part of her races speech.**

**One of the technicians nodded in response.**

**"This is High Sideryt Catall of the Nomads," she said," We have come to pick up our people, like you have requested."**

**She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them, she looked at a hologram that showed the smiling face of a Jurian, or at least the member of a race that was close to the Jurians.**

**"Admiral Robbie Jackson or GDI Earth Defense Command," the man said in accent free Intercosmo." Welcome to our solar system. We didn't think that you would all come."**

**Catall blinked once. She wasn't used to be welcomed in any system.**

**"It is the last I can do for my people," she said smoothly recovering from her slight shock." We will be leaving when we have picked them up."**

**On the screen Admiral Jackson raised an eyebrow.**

**"My superiors had hoped that our people could get into a little deeper contact. But if you need to leave as early..."**

**Catall blinked again.**

**"Did you invite us to stay for a time?"**

**Jackson slimed slightly.**

**"Essentially yes. Maybe we can help you with any problems you might have, trade, that kind of things."**

**Catall could only stare a little dumply at the holographic display and Jackson.**


	43. Chapter 43

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 42

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**Ryoko didn't really know what to think, through she was definatly happy about all this. She couldn't tell why, but the talk with Pope John Paul II and that 'confession of her past sins' had greatly helped her. It seemed that the humans were right in their belief that it helped to talk about things.**

**"Please follow me," one of the Tibetan body guards of the Dalai Lama said and mentioned her to follow.**

**Ryoko nodded and followed the man. She had been surprised when the Dalai Lama had invited her to Geneva, where he was on a long planned visit to talk and help people with his wisdom. Ryoko knew enough about every day politics and religion to know that the Dalai Lama was a man much like the Pope, through the Dalai Lama was the head of a slightly larger nation than the Vatican.**

**The bodyguard opened a door and mentioned her to enter. Through the door, she could see the Dalai Lama sitting on the ground, pouring tea into a cub, while smiling at her. Ryoko couldn't help but smile back at the man.**

**As she entered the room, she noted that she wasn't alone. The Minbari Ambassador, Delenn was sitting slightly to the side, staring at her in disbelieve. The disbelieve changed into a barley concealed fury within moments. Not that Ryoko could blame the Minbari woman for that. Neither could she blame the Minbari for demand her to be extradited to their nation, so that justice would be served. Ryoko hadn't any doubts that this justice would involve being killed immediately after being delivered to Minbar.**

**"Welcome," the Dalai Lama said, smiling his large smile," you must be Ryoko Habuki."**

**Ryoko bowed in front of him.**

**"I am."**

**The Dalai Lama continued to smile and mentioned her to sit opposite to Delenn.**

**"Please sit down."**

**As Ryoko sat down, she could see that Delenn's eyebrow started to twitch slightly.**

**"What is this... person doing here," Delenn asked, her fury just barely supressed.**

**Normally Ryoko would stuff the Ambassadors mouth here and now, but two things were restraining her. One of them was sitting with next to her, the Dalai Lama. She had heard quite a bit about the man and the fact that he was a man of peace. The other reason was the fact that she was now a citizen of the United States and as such she simply couldn't strike at anyone anymore. It might get her into more trouble than it was worth.**

**At the moment she was also glad that Ryo-Ohki was at the growing TIT with Washuu, who they had visited just prior this talk with the Dalai Lama.**

**The Dalai Lama just smiled and poured some of the tea into a cup that was standing in front of Ryoko.**

**"I wanted to hear her story," he said with a relaxed voice." And I think that it couldn't hurt if you hear this story too."**

**Delenn looked at the Dalai Lama as if he had grown a second head and Ryoko couldn't help but shudder. A good part of her didn't want to tell her 'story' to just anyone.**

**"You have done many things for our planet," the Dalai Lama said and turned towards Ryoko." I want to thank you for that."**

**He sat up to bow in front of her. Of cause it was awkward for her, but she did likewise. As they had both sat down again, Delenn was staring at them, speechless.**

**"Now, please tell us your story," he finally said with a wide smile.**

**Ryoko couldn't help herself and began to speak.**

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**Delenn couldn't help herself but feeling bad. Part of her wanted to shrug off the story of Ryoko as lies, but the way she had told the story was more than enough to tell her that it was in fact the truth.**

**When Ryoko and Ryo-Ohki had ravaged through the galaxy and destroyed planets, ships, even whole civilizations, they had skimmed large parts of Minbari controlled space on their way towards Jurai. Large parts of the fleet had been destroyed as had been the populations of a number of colonies.**

**Now she had heard the other side of the story. Ryoko and Ryo-Ohki hadn't been themselves, but rather robots under the command of Kagato. She had fought against her will and she had already been punished by it.**

**Ryoko had talked about a number of dreams or rather nightmares.**

**She looked over towards the Dalai Lama. He was an alien to her and her culture, but she couldn't help but see something of Dukhat in him.**

**She breathed in deep. She wouldn't purchase or support the extradition of Ryoko anymore. Neroon could walk up the wall for all she cared.**

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"NO!"

She shot up from where she was laying. Breathing had her eyes darted around in the room. Sweat poured over her brows and down her face.

She breathed in deep and closed her eyes. It had been the dream again, her nightmare. The nightmare that had started off this whole hell of a life about five or so years ago. And the same nightmare hunted her every night.

Her life had been good before it had happened. She used to be working as assistant of the Cultural Attaché of the Russian Embassy in Washington, one of the good jobs the SVR and the KGB before that. The best a analyst for military history could get.

But that she had been abducted, by aliens of all things. Greys the Americans called them, Vree they called themselves. Sadistic little monsters that had been abducting humans from Earth for decades of not centuries, to perform experiments on them. And they had performed one of their experiments on her.

They had called it splicing. Combining the genetic informations of her body with the genetic information of another species. They had chosen to use the genetic material of a Siberian Wolf. Than they used some sort of dimensional technology to speed up the change to see what would happen.

As result she had been transformed into a humanoid wolf. Than they had performed more of their humiliating experiments. At first she didn't know why they had been mostly of a sexual nature.

She had found out very fast why. After performing their experiments they had sold her as a a slave to a member of a race called 'Doranians', cat like creatures, through her 'owner' was a hybrid. A half Doranian with a quarter 'Jurian' and 'Narn' thrown in. A very nasty one at first anyway.

Senkal was his name. A son of a high ranking Doranian, he had been spared from the life of being a slave, but had to work harder and be more ruthless to survive and move up in the Doranian military.

She hadn't really been able to do anything to get away or even fight against him. A seamless metal collar around her neck prevented that. It had shocked her every time he wanted it, every time she tried to fight back. She had stopped to fight him when he wanted sex, sometimes she even enjoyed it.

Eventually she had stopped to fight him, but she hadn't been broken by him. At least not completely. She hadn't stopped looking for a way out of this hell of a life. She couldn't go very far while she was his private slave on the space ship he commanded. Only last month she had tried to get to the shuttle bay again and tried to steal ma shuttle, but like so many times before guards had found her before she had been able to make it to a shuttle. She had managed to get further than the other times through.

It was ironic. The Vree had changed her to a wolf and now she was the bitch of a cat.

And what she hated much more was the fact that Senkal all but pampered her, ever since he had gotten this new ship two years ago. And he was getting more and more interested in her in many other ways.

She breathed in deep. At least she could go out of the cabin without fearing to be caught up and raped by one of the other Doranians. Most of the ship was closed to her through. Sometimes she wondered if an agent would be able to get through the computer security better than she did.

For a moment she fantasized about coming home to Vilinius and visit the grave of her uncle Marco, who had died twenty years ago, when his submarine had rammed another Soviet Submarine.

She stood up and looked down her body. The light gray fur was all that covered her body, she hadn't seen any piece of clothing in the last five years, the only thing of her old life was the mechanical watch around her left wrist.

Leaving the room that was specially for her, through Senkal could open it any time, she stepped into the main room of Senkals quarters, easily as large as the presidential suite at the Washington Hilton. Breathing in deep, she concentrated on her enhanced sense of smell. Senkal wasn't in the suite, most likely he was on the bridge.

She shook her head for a moment. She could bet that he was drilling his crew much harder than before. Not really surprising after the big loss to the Dilgar some time ago. Walking towards his desk, wanting to see if she could find out who the strange helpers of the Dilgar were, she noted something that hadn't been there yesterday.

She stopped as she discovered what it was. Books, real books, real books printed on real paper. She Doranians and as far as she knew most other races didn't know or use books, rather data crystals and some sort of PADD.

"Govno," she cursed in her motherlanguage as she looked at the first book.

'Naval Warfare of the Second World War', she read from the cover. The book was coming from Earth and was written in English. She looked into the pile of books and noted that they were all about Earth warfare of one kind and another. She even found a copy of Sun Tzu's 'Art of War' and one or two 'Jane's' books.

But there was also a book left open. She put a finger into the side to keep it while she looked at the cover.

'Naval Warfare of the First World War', was printed on the cover. Looking at the page she had kept she noted that they described the operation of the SMS Emden on the Indian Ocean.

Only than she noted a rather large hardcopy from a video that must have been made during the battle with the Dilgar.

The hardcopy showed a massive rather blocky dark gray ship. But what she noted most specially was the large Union Jack on the hull and two words that could be the name of the ship, printed in Latin letters. _HMS Daring_.

**"Maybe there is hope for you yet, Alina Ramius..."**

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**Makoto was in thought, sitting on one of the benches of the Transmitter Portal, a large geodetic dome of glass and steel. For the last few weeks she and the others were getting used to the atmosphere of the CERN and the future TIT. It was strange. Everyone knew about their identity as Sailor Senshi, but no one had ever batted an eye about them. Even when they had announced it in the Japanese TV, it hadn't made the big news, through maybe it was because of the larger battle fought in Vega.**

**Washuu and Amy were working on those bio-implants all Senshi had, trying to find out where they came from and how they could maybe copied. As far as she knew Amy had talked with a few of the Geek Brigade at Edwards AFB, especially with the group of three authors, William King, Dan Abnett, and Eric Nylund.**

**As hard core fan of Halo, she knew Nylund of cause, as he had written the Halo novels. King and Abnett seemed to have written novels about a game names Warhammer 40k or something.**

**The result was a talk that had rapidly become something Amy had dubbed fanboygasm, and had sparked the idea of 'SpecOps Jedi' on one side and something they had called 'Space Spartans'. And now Amy was actively working on the Jedi part. As far as Mokoto knew Amy had talked about unlocking the same genes that were unlocked in the Senshi but repressed by the implants while not-transformed. After that she hadn't understood anything.**

**And than there was this strange knowing grin Washuu directed at Luna and Arthemis every time she saw the two and Luna began to rant about how the Senshi shouldn't do this.**

**She was shaken from her thoughts as she heard the sounds of heavy footsteps coming from the Transmitter Portal.**

**"I think you might like her," she heard the very familiar voice of a man who now donned the mantle of the Master Chief, Jack O'Neill." Carter and Daniel certainly do."**

**"Not really surprising considering that she is one of my creators," said the also familiar voice of Daniel.**

**"Oh hush..."**

**Than she blinked. She had seen Jack in his Mjolnir armor, a heavily modified version of the suit that would enter series production, enough times before not to become the Halo fangirl she was in front of him. However she was not prepared to see a blue suited being following him who looked basically like a winged version of the Arbiter.**

**"I once again say that I don't yet wish to be returned to my original state," she heard him speak with a dark, sowhat monotonous sounding voice." I can fight the Doranians better in the state I am now."**

**Jack shook his head.**

**"I'm not talking about getting out of that armor and getting back those organs. I talk about getting rid of those short duration powercells and getting a personal shield, maybe some tweaks on your armor. I bet its easy for Washuu to get you back to normal in under a day."**

**"I see..."**

**She could see how Jack shook his head.**

**"You need to loosen up, 'ryuu," he quipped." I know that you got a hard shell, but don't let it stiff you."**

**Daniel groaned very audibly over the external speakers of the suit.**

**"Bad pun, Jack. Very bad pun. If I had a stick, I would beat you with it."**

**Mokoto couldn't quite put a finger on why, but she could sense Jack smirking even through the golden visor.**

**"By the way," Daniel continued," PO Coates informed me that ****Admiral Chagwidden granted **your request for getting Shugoryuu into the team."

**"Well, that nearly makes up for the fact that I forgot to program my VCR for the last Simpsons episode..."**

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**"... the first prototype of the Microsoft/General Electrics M244 Mjolnir Medium Powered Armor, worn by Master Chief Jack O'Neill. Admiral A.J. Chagwidden, current Commander of the US Navy SEALs, announced that Ghief O'Neill would be a real life version of the 'Master Chief' from the Microsoft game 'Halo', however he isn't expected to advertise the game or any Microsoft products. Admiral Chagwidden also announced that the Mjolnir Armor worn by Chief O'Neill any any successor of will be the only armor of a green color..."**

**zap**

**"...capitulated yesterday. With that the war between North and South Korea, initiated by several nuclear armed missiles fired by North Korea at Seoul, is officially over. It is expected that the now united Korea is to join the GDI..."**

**zap**

**"... Hyundai Heavy Industries shares have gone up twenty points after they announced the design and the production of their own class of space going warships designed with the help of the Earth Force Files. The Devastator class Partol Vessels is going to be smaller than the Monsoon class and is expected to be build in large numbers in a new factory area that is going be build close to the existing Hyundai. Several nations, like Thailand and Malaysia have already placed bids on several of the first Devastator class vessels to..."**

**zap**

**"Much like Switzerland and the reunited Korea, Norway has joined the GDI after their UN ambassador had left the UN meeting that is still talking about the formation of a united Earth Defense..."**

**zap**

**"... has been opened by Infineon near Hannover, Germany. It is the first completely AI-controlled factory that was build with the help of the Earth Force Techfiles. The factory is controlled by just fifty engineers and support technicians, instead of the common 300 for a factory of this size. The shares of Infineon have also raised by ten points after they announced the production of advanced computer systems and semiconductors and that they are going to rebuild two of their old factories with the new AI-control systems. All personal working in those factories are going to be transferred to a new R&D facility near Berlin, where..."**

**zap**

**"...has simply collapsed. The 'government' of the Islamistic Nation of Aceh was unable to fully control their militias, nor have enough real backing with the population. Without the backing of the population, they are unable to field the manpower to fight against the Indonesian Army and Navy. However, it is awaited that the Indonesian Armed Forces will be dealing with Guerrilla warfare over the next years..."**

**zap**

**"... confirmed several more Doranian Crimes against Sentient Rights. US Marine forces have liberated several Doranian slave labor camps as well as a Shin'bi. 'The crimes done against the Shin'bi are worse than anything done by Dr. Mengele,' according to Dr. Martin Mertin of the University Hospital Zürich. According to Dr. Mertin, they removed several essential inner organs of the Shin'bi and tied him into the life support system of a Heavy Power Armor tailored to his body. He was than sealed into the Armor and largely controlled by a primitive AI system tied into his brain. The Shin'bi, his name is Shoguryuu, was freed from the AI controlling him by Master Chief Jack O'Neill during an attack on the Vegan moon Rustoner. After being offered to replace his removed organs with clones ones by Washuu Habuki, he refused on the grounds that he was better able to fight against the Doranians the way he is. The US Navy has announced that he volunteered to help fighting the Doranians and will be working with Master Chief O'Neill..."**

**zap**

**"... is the first prototype of a Zubrin Colonization Module build by Scaled Composites. The first permanently manned lunar station is going to be a test ground for the colonization of the planet Mars by the Mars Society. Scales Composites are going to build four more Colonization Modules and deliver them to Mars with their Mayflower carrier ship. But the Mars Society isn't the only organization interested in the Zubrin Colonization Module. Several private as well as governmental organizations have announced buy options for the Modules. The GDI is also interested in a military version of the Module for building up bases on other planets ..."**


	44. Chapter 44

**Back Home – The Dual War**

**by Warringer**

Chapter 43 (Partly written by BrainCaster over at the Maximum Addventure)

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He'd lost California…

All had gone according to plan. North America was firmly in his iron grip. The UK would fall soon and the last enemy units were being wiped from the face of Brazil by his armies right now. Then… the disaster. Jack Ryan was fuming with anger.

"Damm you, you backstabbing slit eye. We had an alliance!"

The Japanese prime minister just smiled. He'd every reason to. With his former enemy and new ally Schroeder holding Europe and Africa, and most of Ryan's troops in South America and Iceland, the USA were ripe for the picking. Under the table, two bottles of German beer changed ownership. The chancellor was not above bribery.

Ryan was desperately searching for a way out of this mess (he hadn't lost a game of risk since more than three years, and he'd damn sure keep it that way), when the three players and the rest of the present politicians in the room were interrupted by the sound of knocking at the door.

Multiple decks of cards vanished in inconspicuous pockets and briefcases, and various board games were hidden behind speaker's desks and under strategically placed flags. Even a highly trained unit of soldiers couldn't have reacted more efficient and professional. Within moments the world leader's secret regular's table turned into the respectable-boring assembly it was supposed to be.

The doors opened. Grushayov entered the room.

"Phew… You almost gave me a heart attack. Use the side entrance next ti – What happened?" Ryan asked when he noticed the Russian's serious face.

"You remember the salvaged Jurain treeships in the Nomad fleet?"

"Yes. What's about them… ohh, heck no!"

"I'm afraid, yes. The tree-hugging imperial idiot demands that they be returned immediately. And he wants us to make sure that the Nomads don't disappear from his sight with the ships again. Or he will "express his royal displeasedness about the behaviour of his subjects" ".

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They all agreed. This time the Jurain would-be gardener had gone too far. Such a direct pretension of sovereignty over Terra's internal affairs could not be tolerated. Not without some kind of response. Two hours and one extensive conversation with High Sideryt Catall later Ryan was finally able to continue his game of risk.

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40.000 lightyears to the galactic northeast, Emperor Azusa Jurai, imperial highness, monarch of Jurai, protector of the Galactic union (etc, etc, ) suddenly startled from his exalted royal sleep. He felt as if somebody had taken all his dear titles and his royal reputation, squeezed them trough a shredder, and fed the remains to a Minbar snow leopard. His heart was beating fast and he just couldn't fall asleep anymore, regardless of how hard he tried.

Searching for some diversion he picked up the wooden remote for his holovision. He switched it on, not remembering that it was still set to CNN intergalactical, the new public Terran news channel.

He looked right into the tear-filled eyes of a little Nomad girl who was forced to leave her home because "Fuhano's furry furmonster" couldn't do without a few wooden hulks, which were worthless to him anyway.

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"I am to... WHAT?"

Tenchi stared at the holographic display in front of him, currently showing Admiral Jacson, who had been dumped to being the head of the GDI naval command by the combined vote of the GDI heads of government.

"I know that you are not going to like it and that you have read her dossier," Jackson answered with a sigh." The thing is that she insisted to come to _Dark_ _Knight_ and the big guys in GDI don't want to strain the diplomatic relations with Jurai any more as they already are, concerning our support of the Nomad with their 'treeships'."

Tenchi groaned. He knew that it could have been a problem of officially joining and putting himself under the command authority of the GDI. He now had to follow their orders again, but at least they still listened to him.

Than there was the Nomad situation and the exclusive news coverage of CNN about it. Especially on the new CNN Intergalactic. He could remember how Jurai had complained that GDI hadn't put a leash on the media. He also quite remembered the smug smile of President Ryan when he given his answer of the Press being the fourth power on Earth and that they wouldn't do anything to censor it. And that answer had been broadcast on CNN Intergalactic.

And the GDI was very supportive to the Nomads about the salvaged Jurian Treeships and fact that they had pointed out that even the Galactic Union had a law concerning salvage rights and that it was very close to Earth salvage rights.

Still he didn't like that he would have to host a Jurian noble on his ship, especially not his great-great-grandmother Seto Jurai, who happened to be the real power behind the Jurian throne, at least according to the CIA dossier of her. No did he like it that two of her close servants would be accompanying her.

"Than you are going to proceed to Narn space with the rest of the 1st Expeditionary Fleet, while 2nd Expeditionary Fleet remains in Vega. You will meet up with the _Nautilus_ at Narn and Captain Ramsey is going to brief you in depth on the current Narn situation."

Tenchi sighed. With the growing number of GOD satellites and Ghostrider Missile pods, most of them build on Earth, as well as several of the Ferron defense sats, Earth had been able to send out two additional larger fleets. One was guarding New Omelos together with a smaller Ferron fleet, while 2nd Expeditionary Fleet around the German _Bismark_ under command of Admiral Thorsten Bergmann, was now at Vega to help control the Doranian situation there.

"As far as we know, are the Narn pushing to a counter attack on Kotok. They managed to pretty much hold of the Doranians for the last two weeks and we think that they might be able to push the Doranians back, with some help from us of cause."

Tenchi nodded.

"Anything else?"

Jackson smiled an evil smile.

"_Nautilus_ has discovered most of the Doranian supply lines to the front. Its mostly Ramseys work that the Narn were able to hold of the Doranians over the last weeks. But I sure he is going to tell you more about it."

Tenchi sighed.

"When is Lady Seto going to arrive?"

Jackson shrugged.

"They didn't tell us, but as far as we know, there is going to be some sort of surprise. The CIA is very sure of that, according to the dossier on Seto."

Tenchi rolled his eyes.

"That could be just about anything..."

As if on cue, an alarm went through the ship.

"I'm picking up a high amount of EM radiation in the upper EM bands," Dark Knight notified Tenchi as the holographic connection with Jackson became static." A very powerful form of jamming."

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Battle Leader Len'dar looked at the being in front of him. He had heard of the species, the Nomads. Pariahs of the galaxy, not so much different from the status of the Dilgar at the moment. But while the Dilgar at least had a planet to live on, all the Nomads had was a giant asteroid they had converted into a generation ship.

The Nomad was a six limbed being, centauroid a human would have said. A four-limbed lower body, with the middle limbs looking like they could be used as hands, through that would only be secondary. An upper body with the head and two normal looking arms, and a head with a pronounced muzzle. The entire body was covered by white fur and it was hard to tell if the Nomad in front of him was male or female, as unlike most other races they didn't have any external primary sexual attributes that could have shown him. The lower body was about 156 centimeters in length, not counting about fifty centimeters of tail, while the top of the head was about 171 centimeters above the ground.

The Nomad in front of him also was the only Nomad that actually wore something that accounted at clothing, even through it was nothing more of a robe devoid of any decorations.

He sighed. In the old times he would have growled at the thought that a Nomad would want to talk to him, but now he wasn't in a much better position than the Nomads. The Nomads had arrived from the human system, Sol, with one of their ships, a salvaged and repaired Jashakar Scout of all things. Now he wasn't to do anything like this. Maybe it was because they were in the same situation.

"Welcome to the _Omelos_, High Sideryt Catall," he said.

Catall bowed her upper body slightly.

"Thank you, Battle Leader. I am pleased to be here."

Len'dar looked at Catall. The voice of the High Sideryt had sounded pretty female to him, so he thought that it might be appropriate to think of her as female.

"I have gotten a communique from Earth that announced that you would come," he said deciding not to beat around the bush for long." It said something about a proposal."

As far as he could tell, Catall looked surprised as she looked at him.

"I am surprised that they didn't tell you anything," she said and confirmed his thoughts." The proposal was in the end their idea."

Len'dar raised an eyebrow, but than thought back at the arrival of Zerreroff and the humanitarian ad that had helped them greatly. It seemed that the humans liked to surprise people.

"I would like to know what they suggested."

Catall hesitated for a moment, no doubt because the proposal was problematic and because she was used to be rejected. Len'dar chuckled internally as he thought about the news coverage from the human news channel CNN Intergalactic about thew Nomads. They had given him insight into some of the things the humans did and why they did it. And there was also the short series about the Nomads and how they had turned around some of the rumors about them, like the rumor that the Nomads ate their own babies, when they just had rather strict rules of birth control to keep their population in check.

"The humans have suggested that our people could help each other," she said after a while." We are looking for a home world for the last eight millennia, we also have about fifteen percent more industrial capacity then we really need. The Dilgar on the other hand have a planet that is to be terraformed, and has a large surface. And your people needs a large industrial capacity to get back to living instead of merely surviving."

She made a pause and looked Len'dar into the eyes.

"The proposal would be that we can land and build up our own colony on the surface of New Omelos. In return, we would be willing to help the Dilgar with our industrial capacity. We would be willing to build new environmental domes for your people as well as refitting and rebuilding the ships of your fleet."

Len'dar stared at her as she continued.

"We are also ready to defend the planet if it needs be. _The_ _Home_ is equipped with a large number of different weapons and we have a number of combat ready ships."

Len'dar didn't know what to think for a moment and fell back into his chair. The Nomads, the Pariahs of the galaxy were coming to the Dilgar to help them, while all they wanted was the right to build a colony on Ne Omelos.

He closed his eyes and breathed in deep. He saw a great number of things that were for the proposal, while only a few were against it. But he also had to think of the results when it came to the population.

"I need to think about this."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Ramsey stood in the center of _Nautilus'_ Command Center and looked at the plot in front of him, while holding a stopwatch in his hand. Next to him was Na'tot, the Narn observer that had been posted to his ship.

It was silent on the bridge as everyone was immersed in their jobs and because that even after month of warfare in space, none of the former submariner had lost the reflex of being as silent as possible while on mission.

Na'tot was still bewildered. She couldn't understand how the operation of the _Nautilus_ could be as effective as it was, when all she did was being silent and keeping out of range of enemy sensors. And the missile weapons shouldn't be as effective as they were.

"Twenty seconds," Ramsey said.

Both set of eyes followed the blue lines that represented the Barracuda Antiship Attack Vehicles and went from the course of _Nautilus_ towards the convoy of Doranian transports.

"Ten Sec..."

Ramsey couldn't continue as a scream echoed through the Command Center.

"Slipstream Event. Distance a thousand klicks. Its right on top of us."

The ship shook suddenly and the lights in the Command Center flickered.

"Two glancing hits. We lost the upper Railgun turret."

Ramsey stared on the plot. Three Doranian cruisers had left slipstream right on top of them and began to shoot.

"Shield!" he ordered without so much raising his voice, while his eyes narrowed." Get me a status of those Cruisers. Fire at will."

Even if _Nautilus_ was primarily designed to be a sub in space, it didn't mean that she couldn't be used as assault ship. The fire control technicians worked over time as the turrets of _Nautilus_ swung around to track the three cruisers.

Ramsey was glad that he had ordered to retract the EGAD array already, as it had to be pulled after the ship, like a tow sonar of submarines.

Informations began to pop up next to the symbols that represented the Doranian Cruisers and he cursed. All three Cruisers were emitting much as the same EM signals as Dreadnoughts and that meant that they were based on Quantum 2 technology rather than Quantum 1 tech as they should be. The fight would be much harder than he liked it to be.

Worse even was that the freighters were suddenly accelerating and disappeared into slipstream before the Barracudas had a chance to hit them.

"That was a freaking trap," he muttered and the ship shook again, this time from several hits into the shield." Ge us to slipstream."

The plot now zoomed in on the Nautilus and the three Cruisers and smaller icons speed from Nautilus towards the Doranian ships, as his ship opened fire with its Plasma cannons and the single remaining railgun.

"Get me a targeting solution for Tube one and two," he ordered, using the names of the two turrets that were used to fire the Barracudas." I want four Barracudas for each Cruiser."

"We got a targeting solution," he heard from the tactical officer." Tubes one and two ready."

"Fire."

Na'tot couldn't help but respecting Ramsey and the crew of the ship. Most other commanders and crews would have panicked and made wrong decisions, but not these humans.

Ramsey turned towards the helm.

"How long until slipstream?"

"Twenty seconds."

If he had to deal with Q1 Cruisers, he would have chosen to fight, but with Q2 Cruisers that were popping up everywhere he didn't want to risk his ship.

Again the ship shook.

"Shield Stress one hundred ten percent, we are losing it."

Ramsey grit his teeth. If her lost the shields, the enemy fire would tear into the armor. While the ship would survive it until the Shield was back up, it would still do damage.

"Spread one confirmed hit," he heard as the ship shook once again.

"We lost PP turrets Three and Twelve."

"Shields back up."

Ramsey glared at the plot.

"Slipstream Entry."

He continued to stare at the plot.- How the hell had the Doranians found him and his ship?


	45. Chapter 45

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 44

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**Seto smiled to herself. Tenchi had proved to be sowhat of a problem. He had reacted very poorly to his new 'fiancee', who happened to be Noike, Setos adopted daughter. Even if Noike was never to be a real finacee, but could rather be considered an undercover GP agent for looking out for the Masaki household.**

**Seto looked over to Minaho. It seemed that her chief of intelligence was missinformed. Only her mother Airi and Tennyo, had been the ones to inform her about the changed situation on Earth. Of the most powerful beings at the Masaki household only Sasami and Ayeka had remained. The others had gone to other places on the planet. Washuu was currently working on establishing the Terran Institute of Technology in a city called Geneva, while Ryoko had been offered the citizenship of three different nations of Earth, through she only took one. It was unknown where she was at this moment or what she did.**

**And than there was Tenchi. He had changed, according to the reports of Yosho. It seemed that he had been thrown into another reality by an experimental teleporter of Washuu and had remained there for twenty to thirty years, bringing back a very powerful ship, _Dark_ _Knight_, and technology that was now lifting Earth straight from sub-Quantum 0 to mid-Quantum 2 level.**

**Worst was that Earth didn't seem to suffer any problems from the transition of technology level. But not only that, Earth had befriended the remains of the Dilgar Empire and the Nomads.**

**And the Nomads had given Seto the means of becoming an observer and get close to Tenchi to observe him by herself. It had mostly been Seiryo, who had informed Azusa about the Jurian treeships in possession of the Nomads, or rather the fact that the Nomads where at Earth. Even Seto herself had thought that Earth and the Nomads would roll over and give the ships back and than accept Seto as observer.**

**However, no one had expected the 'fourth national power', as the Earthers dubbed their press, to make such a ruckus about it and actually do something about it. Even if it was just Misaki, who had been floored by the sheer cuteness of a white furred fluffy Nomad kid hugging a cloth puppet, while looking at the camera with tear-filled eyes. Heck even Seto herself had been stuck by the sheer cuteness. ****Azusa would have to sleep on the couch for the next one or two decades and had been forced by Misaki to revoke the demand to give the treeships back.**

**At least the Earthers had permitted Jurai to send observers as an act of 'good will'. She had eventually gone to insist to be observer on _Dark_ _Knight_.**

**And that had led her to plan a great entrance at Earth. The Tripple Z attack, would show the humans that there were other ways of dealing with ships.**

**She chuckled, the Tripple Z was a very old relic of a long forgotten war and it was present in all navigational computer systems in the galaxy. Essentially it was a backdoor in the system that was never really discovered. Only dump luck had given Seto the code to use just this backdoor to literally freeze up all ships with the use of this backdoor. All it needed was heavy jamming following a specific matematical code and the code was only known to Seto and her ship, Mikagami.**

**Now Mikagami was sitting right on top of Earth in slipstream and projected the jamming to the outside. There shouldn't be any ship out there that wasn't effected by the Tripple Z by now.**

**"Jump back into normal space," she ordered and smiled.**

**"Multiple contacts," she heard one of the tactical officers in a normal tone before her tone changed to something akin to panic." We are hit by targeting systems from all ankles."**

**"What?"**

**While Seto kept her cool, Kanemitsu Hirata, her chief of operations, was staring at the holographic display that appeared in front of them. And everyone could see ships moving on the display, while a number of smaller contacts were zipping towards Mikagami.**

**A smaller screen popped up to show these smaller contacts, strange X-shaped craft, moving in on Mikagami only to spread out and closely follow the treeships hull with the occasional firing of reaction thrusters. As the had followed the hull, they zipped past and turned about to do the same maneuver in reverse.**

**"Number of targeting signals increases!"**

**"Incoming communication!"**

**Seto just nodded and a Earther in a black uniform appeared on a screen.**

**"Attention Jurian Vessel," he said," This is Admiral Jackson of GDI Earth Defense Center Shabazza. You are to deactivate all formsof active jamming. Under other circumstances it might be considered as Act of War."**

**Everyone stared at the display. Seto was impressed. The Earthers had guts to do something like this.**

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**Admiral Robbie Jackson narrowed his eyes as he glared at the holographic display. Just a few moments ago heavy jamming had started and flooded the entire Earth Moon gravitational system. While it was now jamming normal radio communication and part of the sensors, nothing more had happened. Laserlinks were established between the ships and satellites above Earth and the TacNet was getting busy.**

**However, the Nomad ships were now floating dead in space, while some systems on the ships docked with Shabazza were flickering and shutting down.**

**"Can we pinpoint the source of that jamming?"**

**"We're working on it, sir," was Seilers response.**

**Lines began to appear on the display and slowly began to move, crossing at a single point in space.**

**"We have the source, sir."**

**Jackson nodded.**

**"Order to all ships to target that area of space. The Pods and GODs as well."**

**He glared at the display, where he only could see the area of space where the jamming originated. Something in the back of his mind, he knew that something was different from any attack that could be coming. Mostly because the jamming was on several unusual frequencies.**

**As he stared at the screen, a large wooden ship slowly seemed to raise from empty space like a submarine from the ocean.**

**He frowned.**

**"Jurians," he muttered," Figures that they would do a 'Great Entrance'."**

**So that would be the ship that brought Lady Seto Jurai and her adjutants.**

**"All ship, do not fire," he ordered." And get me a connection to that ship."**

**Seiler nodded and Jackson knew that he could speak. While he couldn't set them a shoot in front of their noses without risking a diplomatic incident, he could at least scare them a bit.**

**"Attention Jurian Vessel," he said," This is Admiral Jackson of GDI Earth Defense Center Shabazza. You are to deactivate all forms of active jamming. Under other circumstances it might be considered as Act of War."**

**Now he had to wait for a response and he didn't have to wait for long, as the screen of the unknown treeship was replaced by the face of a green haired woman in robes, with a commanding presence who seemed to be used to get her way.**

**Jackson had meet several people like that and he wasn't intimidated by her, even with reading the file on Seto. She might be different from most Jurians, but as far as he could tell, she had the same arrogance, maybe even more arrogance because of her status.**

**"Lady Seto Jurai of ****Mikagami," she said." You have guts, Admiral, I have to give you that."**

**Jacksons facial expression didn't change.**

**"It doesn't have to do anything with having guts, Lady Seto. Its just a healthy bit of paranoia. In the current situation and the War with the Doranians, that should be understandable."**

**Seto frowned slightly.**

**"Very well," she said finally." Now I would like to get aboard of _Dark_ _Knight_."**

**Jacksons eyes narrowed slightly. That request had sounded more like an order.**

**"We will forward you a set of Galaxy Standard nav points for a docking port with Shabazza," he answered." Earth Defense Center out."**

**As the connection was cut, he knew that he could have talked to her longer and that she most likely had awaited him to bow before her or something, but he had long since decided that he didn't like her, so she would only get as much as she deserved from his point of view. He would be damned if he would exchange any pleasantries with her.**

**"I wonder how she and Commodore Masaki will react to the Last-minute Dilgar representant?" he wondered out loud.**

**He looked over to Seiler.**

**"Do we have the data of the jamming?"**

**Seiler nodded.**

**"From second one, sir. All on HD."**

**Jackson nodded.**

**"Good, forward the data to the spooks at Langley. Maybe they can do something with it. Could turn out to be useful in the future."**

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**"Leaving Slipstream."**

**Korvettenkapitän (OF-4) Daniel Petersen nodded. He was the commander of _Mainz_, a Pegasus Cutter of the Raumflotte. He sighed slightly as he looked over towards his guests and the reasons why he was further away from Earth than anyone before, a good thousand lightyears deep into space of the Galactic Union, in essence Jurian space in all but name.**

**His guests were the six Shin'bi that had been rescued from Doranian slavery several month before. Only now, even if Earth wasn't completely safe, GDI could send a ship to the Shin'bi homeworld to get them back home. Through no one had really thought about slight complications.**

**Petersen chuckled a little as he thought about that. It seemed that one of the Shin'bi, their de facto leader Haruka, had fallen in love with von Bismark, who had fallen in love with her. With von Bismark being the number one celebrity in Germany at the moment, that had caused quite some ruckus. He could still remember the headline of the BILD, one of the German rainbow press papers.**

**'Love conquers all! Even over racial borders!'**

**Than there were also the reactions of Neo Nazis and their ilk. Peterson himself hadn't many problems with it, through he knew that is was strange.**

**"Okay people," he said." I want a full sensory coverage while we make our way towards the planet. I don't want them to think of us as pirates."**

**From what Haruka and the other Shin'bi had told GDI, the Shin'bi had been the target of piracy raids for more than one hundred years and that it was the thing that had united the nations/factions of their planet. Petersen had been surprised to hear that the Shin'bi in fact had been slightly more advanced than Earth when the first Pirates had begun to plague them.**

**He sighed and leaned back. He had been ordered to get the Shin'bi back to their world, open diplomatic talks and aid them against piracy raids if needed.**

**He looked at the screen. It showed the blue-brown-green-white marble of an Earth like planet, the Shin'bi homeworld Zaitaku, through from what he could tell at the moment, it had less water than Earth. The amount of information about Zaitaku was not very much. Some infos from a Galaxy Police database and some from his Shin'bi guests.**

**"Two contacts," he suddenly heard from his sensory officer." Approaching from behind. Low Radar return, indicates RAM paint or coating. Low Lidar return, indicates light absorbing coating. Low EM radiation, aside from a low powered micrometer wave radar. If they weren't as hot as they are I would have missed them. They got one large IR footprint."**

**Petersen snorted. He knew that most races in the galaxy didn't use any sensors like classical optical ones, as they were obsolete compared to most other sensors. He was pretty sure that most of the other races would have missed those two contacts.**

**He glanced towards the Shin'bi to see them being surprised that they had picked up the two ships.**

**"Can I get an image?" he asked.**

**"Yes, Kap'tän."**

**The image on the main screen changed from Zaitaku to showing a black patch of space, with a pair of very faint silhouettes. Petersen blinked and squinted his eyes to try and make out more.**

**"IR?"**

**The sensory officer chuckled a little.**

**"Would be slightly better I guess..."**

**The image changed again, now showing a multiple colored image of a pair of sleek ships with a rotating section, much like the Omega class Destroyer, through it was more of a ring than the Leonov style section of the Omega. At eight parts of the ship he could see that space was literally blotted with IR radiation, lancing out deep into space.**

**"Can you get any information about them, Mainach?"**

**Mainach chuckled.**

**"Hey, this baby got better sensors than our old Type 206."**

**Petersen chuckled. He and most of his crew were old submariners and had done most of their service in those old tin cans.**

**"Lets see... Length about 330 meters, and about 100 thousand tons. No idea what weapons or their performances, but at the moment they seem to run silent on Ion Engines."**

**Petersen chuckled.**

**"Okay," he said and breathed in deep." Lets hail them. Tight band I don't want that anyone else listens to what we have to say."**

**The communications officer nodded and Petersen crossed his fingers behind his back.**

**"This is Korvettenkapitän Daniel Petersen of the Raumflotte Cutter _Mainz_, representing GDI. I am calling the two Shin'bi vessels. We have no hostile intention towards you. Please respond."**


	46. Chapter 46

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 45

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**Katai of the Yokokaze Clan was the proud commander of the _Kogatana_, one of the Silent Blade II class Frigate that had been build after the breakthrough that had propelled his people into the Quantum 0 classification of civilizations.**

**The breakthrough had only been possible after the last thirteen Silent Blade class Battlecruisers, the pre-breakthrough designation, had been able to disable a Quantum 0 pirate while he was attempting to break orbit of Zaitaku. It had given the scientists of the many clans and nations of their homeworld the means to develop new technologies and redesign the ships they had.**

**So Katai was now the commander of a Silent Blade II instead of a Silent Blade and he was glad that he was able to fight the pirates that plagues his home system at a more equal footing.**

**Just like the ship that had appeared from slipstream right in front of his ship and its sister.**

**He had ordered to gather as much information as possible before they would go and attack the ship. Information was something everyone needed and the Shin'bi even more so, having to fight vastly superior enemies over the last 140 years. But even before, the Shin'bi way of fighting had lead early to new ways of getting and interpret information.**

**Katai lazily flapped his wings in the zero-gravity of the command center of his ship to stop right behind his data specialist, Yui.**

**"Anything?" he asked and looked over his shoulders at the screen that showed the presumed pirate ship.**

**"Unusual design," she answered and her clawed fingers moved over her keyboard and touchscreen." I've never seen anything like it before. As far as I can tell its a ship designed and build only for warfare. No flourish stuff, just straight to the point."**

**She zoomed in on the ship and it showed a boom in the upper left of the ship.**

**"A weapons turret," she noted." Nothing that we have ever encountered on a pirate ship. And that ship got four of those."**

**Than she zoomed in on other smaller turrets.**

**"And than those smaller ones. It gives the ship a nearly complete coverage of weapons fire. They could take a shot at us without even turning around."**

**Katai frowned and nodded. Than he blinked once as a red symbol popped up on the screen and he heard Yui cursing silently.**

**Her hands flew over the touchscreen and keyboard and the screen changed, showing new informations Katai didn't completely understand, only that it dealt with radar data.**

**"I think they found us," Yui stated." They are cycling through multiple radar frequencies. Fast enough that the smart skin lags behind."**

**Katai did the same as Yui a moment before, cursing silently. The smart skin that covered the hull was a relatively new development, but it was based on old principles. The pirate ship that had given his people informations about sensors that were in use in the galaxy and the scientists had developed new countermeasures to deal with them. Like the smart skin, a nanotechnical layer that was designed to scatter and dampen the radar and lidar return of the hull. However the nano particles in the smart skin needed some time to calibrate on the radar frequencies that hit the hull and when they lagged the radar return was greater.**

**"Daisuke, switch the smart skin to passive mode," he ordered his tactical officer, who nodded in return.**

**"Lets hope that..."**

**"Incoming radio message," the radio operator said and Yui looked at Katai.**

**"They have seen us," she deadpanned.**

**Katai frowned.**

**"Lets hear it," he ordered.**

**"This is Korvettenkapitän Daniel Petersen of the Raumflotte Cutter _Mainz_, representing GDI. I am calling the two Shin'bi vessels. We have no hostile intention towards you. Please respond."**

**The voice had spoken in their mother language, through it had a strange accent. Katai looked at the screen in front of Yui.**

**"Status change of the ship?"**

**Her fingers once again flew over the screen and keyboard.**

**"No. They are not rerouting energy to their weapons nor shields. Maybe it is genuine..."**

**Katai sighed and closed his eyes for a moment.**

**"Get me the _Reiken_. I want to know what Mizuki thinks of this."**

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**Internally Tenchi sighed, but he didn't show it outside, as he glanced over towards Lady Seto. He didn't really want to have anything to do with her, but as she was now posted to his ship as observer, he couldn't help that. To add insult to injury, DK, D, K and Setsuna had ganged up on him to get him to not only greet her but also show Seto and her people the ship.**

**He had already showed them their cabins. Being a Warlock and intended to be a flagship, _Dark_ _Knight_ had been fitted with several VIP cabins with 50 square meters and the three Jurians had been put in three of those. Of course they had started to bitch about it. It seemed that only the lowliest crews on Jurian ships would get such 'small' cabins. It once again showed Tenchi how decadent the Jurians were.**

**The Command Center would be the last thing he would show them. First they needed to know about one of the most important places for the crew.**

**The door opened in front of them and they walked into one of the large lounges of the recreational area. The off duty crew was sitting around on tables and in couches, reading, talking or watching TV.**

**"This is one of the main recreational areas," he said and looked at the two companions of Seto.**

**Seto hadn't really been the one to say anything, but her two companions were louder about it.**

**"That's it?" Kanemitsu Hirata, Seto's Chief of Operations, asked as he looked quite shocked.**

**Tenchi merely raised an eyebrow, not letting his irritation show. This was far more than he was used to before getting _Dark Knight_. Never before he knew about any crew that had gotten this much and the added things that came with this lounge.**

**"It suits our needs," he answered." But this is just one of the lounges. We got several trainings areas, a small library and two computer rooms."**

**"Computer rooms?" Minaho Masaki, Tenchi's aunt it seemed and Seto's Chief of Intelligence, asked very interested, while Hirata gave Tenchi a very irritated glare.**

**"Follow me," Tenchi said and lead them through the room.**

**A look at Seto showed him that she didn't think of commenting at the moment. Again an automatic door opened in front of them and they were greeted by a rather loud scream.**

**"Hatchery!"**

**The Jurians stopped and blinked. Tenchi chuckled about this room. DK had pushed it through**** for all ships** with GDI and the heads of state had signed it after long debates.

**Rooms like these were set up on all GDI ships. They ****were rather large and contained rows and rows of, for Earth, high end computers with large displays. There weren't only programs for work installed on the machines, but also a huge amount of games. The Gaming Industry had fallen over their own feet to give their games to GDI for this project and the crews were very glad about it.**

**"I'm sorry," she said and walked up to one of the computers where a Petty Officer Second Class was sitting.**

**Tenchi glanced on the screen and grinned, seeing how a whole host of Zerglings rushed into a rather dense line of Terran Marines, who were nearly completely slaughtered. He glanced back at his guests and shrugged.**

**"I forgot that DK has organized a small Starcraft Tournament for today."**

**With that he turned back to the Petty Officer who was still immersed into her game.**

**"Who's winning?" he asked.**

**"Ensign Winters, sir," came the reply with the Petty Officer not looking up, but rather ordering her Goliaths and her single Behemoth to contain the Zerg attack.**

**"I would wonder if he wasn't winning," Tenchi replied with a chuckle.**

**"Your not helping, sir."**

**Tenchi laughed slightly.**

**"Build a few Firebats," he said and patted her on the shoulder." And try not to loose too high. You have him beat in Quake anyway."**

**"I'm looking forward to frag him several times over, sir," she replied with a light mad crackle.**

**The Jurians were still standing where they were and blinked. Tenchi gave them a sardonic smile.**

**"One of the ways to deal with the young generation off-duty. Give them a computer, some games, pizza and coke and they are all set. Bread and Games. The old Romans knew what they talked about."**

**There was a rather loud curse in the background that made all three Jurians blush, while Tenchi just shook his head.**

**"Corners really needs to learn how to loose a little more silent."**

**"He does, sir," a male voice came from behind and Tenchi turned to look at an ensign." You still in for the UT Tournament, sir? Lieutenant Kowalski needs to pushed from his throne."**

**Tenchi grinned.**

**"You can count me in. Through we might get into a sortie at that time."**

**The ensign shrugged.**

**"We can't have everything, sir. If we do, we have the Tournament later."**

**"Could clash with the CS one."**

**"I guess we can work something out with DK, sir."**

**A look at the Jurians told Tenchi that they were quite possibly a little more shocked, through he didn't quite know what had them shocked. The games or the way he treated his crew and reverse.**

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**Battle Leader Hak'ey didn't really understand the strange looks he was getting every since he had put a foot on the human ship that had brought him to Shabazza before coming aboard Dark Knight. Especially he was puzzled by the reaction of one of the crewman who had 'gone to get a drink' after he had given him his name.**

**These humans were very strange in their behavior.**

**At the moment he was sitting in one of the lounges that were part of the recreational system of Dark Knight. To come to Earth was kind of like coming to a paradise. While on transit from New Omelos to Earth, he had stood under a device called 'shower' by the humans for at least three hours, washing of grime and dirt of twenty years.**

**'Damn Jhe'dur,' he thought and sighed.**

**Back during the war he had believed in her like so many others and he had actively helped her in a way. He wasn't really a fighter, but he had been gifted with an analytical mind and he had used that to study the ways other races waged war in the long history of the galaxy. And it was the same analytical mind that wouldn't let him forget what he had seen and what he wanted to forget. Such was the curse of having a eidetic memory.**

**But even after showering for three hours and receiving a new and real uniform of the Dilgar Remenant Forces, he felt dirty and out of place. And the strange glances he received didn't help any.**

**"Battle Leader Hak'ey?" he heard a voice behind him and turned around to look at a elder human in an uniform that was different to those of the humans around. Another service maybe?**

**"Yes," he answered and stood up, only to look at three Jurians behind the human.**

**And he recognized all three of them.**

**The human smiled.**

**"I'm Commodore Tenchi Masaki," the human said and presented his hand for a gesture that was called 'shaking hands'.**

**Hak'ey shook the hand, stealing a glance towards the Jurians. They didn't look like they were liking his presence.**

**"What is that Dilgar doing here?" the Jurian he had identified as ****Kanemitsu Hirata, the Chief of Operations of the also present Lady Seto Jurai."** Shouldn't they be extinct by now?"

**"Not thanks to you," Hak'ey couldn't help but shoot back, resulting in Hirata becoming red in his face.**

**"Do you know what the Dilgar did, Commodore?" Hirata directed at Commodore Masaki, while ignoring Hak'ey and stressing 'Commodore'.**

**Commodore Masaki gave Hirata a level glance.**

**"I am very well aware of what happened during the Dilgar War, Commander," he answered in an also level tone of voice.**

**It only enraged Hirata more.**

**"The Dilgar have killed billions of people during that War. And they were using Chemical and Bioligical weapons."**

**Hak'ey could hear the capital letters in chemical and biological. A memory from his studies of the Jurian warfare surfaced.**

**"Not the Dilgar killed billions of people, Commander Hirata," he said." War Leader Jha'dur killed billions of people."**

**Hirata seemed put of as Hak'ey spoke up and didn't react.**

**"Of cause she wasn't the only one to do just that," he continued, keeping quite enough to only be heard by Masaki and the Jurians." One Thousand three hundred fourty nine years ago. The 7th Jurian Armada under command of ****Lady Seto Jurai, completely glassed the planet ****Kontari Prime, home of a Quantum 0 civilization. 7th Armada did that because the Kontari were pressed by Quantum 2 pirates to not reveal their position. Of cause the Kontari didn't know very much about the Jurians having been Level 0 for just twenty years and thought that 7th Armada was only 'exaggerate' about what would happen, fearing the Pirates more than 7th Armada. The result was that Kontari Prime was rendered inhabitable, killing about two billion people who simply didn't know who they were up against, destroyed by a woman who has, according to many sources, a very powerful psychosis when it comes to her hatred for pirates and sadly the political power to act on said psychosis."**

**While he had spoken he had avoided to look directly at Lady Seto, looking at Hirata, who had paled while he had spoken. But from the corner of his eyes he saw that Lady Seto's face didn't change.**

**"I don't try to defend Jhe'dur, she can rot in hell for all I care. But she isn't the only one to kill billions."**

**He suddenly heard a voice that sounded strangely like his own.**

"But not goof for goof..."

"Oh mind your own kipper Pierce. Sir, I was only trying to..."

On the display he could see a scene with a human who looked also very similar to him.

At that moment he could only think that the response the man on the screen had gotten was pretty accurate to what he had just pulled.


	47. Chapter 47

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 46

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**"Slipstream Event! 1000 kilometers starboard above."**

**Korvettenkapitän Petersen rolled his eyes a sighed.**

**"Somehow I knew that this would happen," he muttered before giving orders." ID?"**

**"Currently not identified," Leutnant zur See (OF-1) Mainach noted." But I get wavefronts consistent with Q-2 technology. Most likely pirates."**

**Petersen snorted. He could have guessed. Following the explanations of the Shin'bi aboard his ship, he knew that the whole system was pretty much infested by pirates.**

**Suddenly the ship shook and the red alert started to blare very loudly. Petersen was now heavily reminded of the Doranian Raid on New Omelos and how his ship had been all but crippled there, but not without giving more than she had taken.**

**"Shields!" he ordered slightly louder than normal." Get me a targeting solution, SOFORT!"**

**"Direct hit," he heard directly after giving his orders." We lost gravitic fin five and got a hit on plasma two."**

**Petersen narrowed his eyes. He could figure that the pirates would want to take out his engines.**

**"Bring us about and closer to them. I want them to eat plasma."**

**The ship shook again.**

**"Direct hit. Shield down to fifty two percent. They are firing missiles."**

**Petersen didn't let himself being distracted from the the shouts coming from the Shin'bi or Von Bismark. He simply glared at the tactical display.**

**"Targeting solution for rail one and three."**

**"Fire."**

**Rail one and three were the two heavy railgun turrets on starboard and very able to target the pirate vessel that came from exactly that side, while the ship still turned about to present her bow and the dual Heavy Plasma Mortars to the pirate.**

**Petersen looked at the screen and two icons flashed as they showed that the turrets were firing. The heavy and fast 8 inch projectiles made their way towards the pirate ship that was on a direct course towards _Mainz_. The four missiles of the Pirate nearly had reached the GDI ship, but other than any of the other races in the galaxy, _Mainz_ had a system unknown to the pirates.**

**The Interceptor system of the Pegasus had become active the second the red alarm had been sounded and independent radar and lidar systems were looking into the direct area around the ship. Five of the ten Interceptors had detected the missiles and tracked them since detection. As they came closer and closer the Mk III Interceptors opened fire. Streams of plasma bolts, fired by a low caliber gating style plasma bolter, were spat towards the missiles hitting them exactly where the AI of the Interceptor system had predicted them to be, detonating them in a spectacular display.**

**As the missiles exploded the pirates began to realize that this wasn't going to go as planned.**

**"Firing solution for Rail two and four."**

**"Fire."**

**The two other railgun turrets, now able to target the pirate began to join in, firing at the Pirate ship, steadily reducing its shield power with a continuous stream of projectiles impacting in the shield.**

**The ship shook at another direct hit, but the automatics of the turrets kept them steadily on target.**

**"Direct hit. Shields down to ten percent."**

**Petersen narrowed his eyes.**

**"Recycle the shield."**

**That was a tactic he had come up with just after the Raid on New Omelos and the knowledge that the armor, while only capable of taking so much, was as good as a shield and combined with the E-Web it was quite possible to survive long enough for the shield to recycle and get back online to full strength.**

**"Shield offline. Ten seconds."**

**"Firing solution for HP One and Two."**

**Petersen grinned.**

**"Let them think we needed to switch of the shields for them. Fire."**

**The dual Heavy Plasma Mortars that made up most of _Mainz_' bow powered up before spitting large plasma bolts at the pirate ship. They crossed the space between less fast than the railgun projectiles, but non the less impacted in the frontal sector of the pirates shield, taking the shield down rapidly.**

**"Solution for LPBPC One through four and LPC One through Four."**

**"Shields back online. One hundred percent. No hits."**

**Petersen snorted. Those pirates seemed to be pushovers in his opinion. The Doranians had been more of a challenge. With such a low rate of fire, he wondered how they even managed to get any other ship down.**

**"Fire."**

**Four light particle beam cannons and four light plasma pulse weapons fired and together with the railgun turrets they stuck the same spot the large plasma bolts had hit, taking out the shield before coring the entire pirate ship after punching through the weak and thin hull.**

**The reactor of the ship lost containment and reduced the ship to a rapidly expanding cloud of gas and debris.**

**Petersen shook his head.**

**"Weicheier..."**

-----------------------------------------------------------------

**Captain Miles Kantor sighed again. Here he was, yet again shoved around by the Pentagon and, by expansion, GDI Headquarters. He twitched slightly as he heard the loud droning of heavy construction equipment not far away in the same building and outside. He was actually surprised to find the room he was in now in such a 'complete' condition.**

**It had everything. A large movie screen with a high end beamer, connected to an up-to-date workstation. Several other up-to-date workstation all across the room. Several crates with soda bottles, mostly coke, a so called 'Senseo' coffee machine with a number of coffee pads and a water disperser standing in a corner.**

**He blinked as he looked at the large screen and the scene playing on it.**

**"Commerce Primary Ignition."**

**"Fire."**

**That was followed by the Death Star blowing up Alderaan.**

**"Rewind that," he heard one of the people standing in front of the screen.**

**"Commerce Primary Ignition."**

**"Stop."**

**Kantor groaned.**

**Not wanting to disturb the Warsies at the screen, he turned to the rest of the room, where others were working on other things. He walked over to another group standing around one of the workstations.**

**"How about we add second reactor? Should give it a longer range and..."**

**"Don't you think that might be overkill? The Flying Crowbar was never really tested and with a nuclear ramjet, if could go on for years for all we know..."**

**"How about additional speed? With the new alloys we could make it survive Mach 10 plus speeds. Makes it much harder to intercept from orbit. And it wouldn't need to carry nukes with it. The supersonic wake in low level flight and TWO reactors are doing all the damage..."**

**Kantor took a step back. Those people had dug out the plans for 'Project Pluto' and the SLAM, Supersonic Low Altitude Missile, from the sixties and were on their way to make it a HyperSLAM, Hyper Sonic Low Altitude Missile.**

**Maybe another workstation...**

**"Could work... We could modify a slipstream drive to let an object leave at relativistic speeds. Attach it to an asteroid and you got a planet killer."**

**A look to the side...**

**"... Gray Goo..."**

**"... Upscale a gravitic bomb to get a Buster Machine III..."**

**He stumbled back towards the door, not turning around as he opened the door and left the room. Closing the door behind him he closed his eyes and exhaled.**

**He should have known it. 'Project Doomsday' was such a fitting description for all this.**

**"Guys!" he could hear from inside the room." Barricade came up with Assimovs Electron Pump!"**

**Even worse, they had found the Doomsday thread of Psychosama on SpaceBattles...**

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**Reconnaissance. One of the basics of modern Earth Combat Doctrine. Even in the newly opened interstellar age, reconnaissance was to one of the cornerstones of naval space warfare. The generals of the Pentagon and later the GDI had realized very early that Earth needed to know what was going on in space if they wanted to mount a good defense for Earth and on extension for Vega and now New Omelos.**

**In November 2003 the Jet Propulsion Laboratory had come up with a cheap and easy to build reconnaissance network satellite and called the satellite 'Eye of the Beholder'. Most of the satellite could be build with of the shelf systems, while the rest would need the help of Nathan or the industrial capacity of the Regula Mobile shipyards.**

**Later the combined effort of all GDI nations and a newly build factory specially for building these satellites in Detroit, made it possible to build five of these satellites in a day, the more advanced parts coming straight from some industrial over capacity of the Mobile Shipyards.**

**So Earth had access to a cheap standardized reconnaissance satellite that could be build and deployed in large quantities allowing Earth and GDI to cover a good amount of space. In a smaller version of the Technology Transfer Treaty with the Ferrons, the Defense Network Treaty, the GDI exchanged the plans for the '****Eye of the Beholder'** satellite for the plans and a number of complete Ferron Defense Satellites. Another part of the Defense Network Treaty was that both the Feron Kingdom as well as the GDI had complete access to a Reconnaissance Network that would have to be build in the Corian Expanse.

**So ever since the dawn of the year 2004, GDI and the Ferron Navy were seeding the '****Eye of the Beholder'** satellites they had build and slowly covered every light years with them. Now three hundred of these satellites were floating in deep space, orbiting around stars, their large solar panels, each the size of a football field, powering them for decades to come, while their passive sensory systems covered several dozen lightmonth around the satellite itself.

**One of these satellites was G-039, orbiting the star known as Lalande 21185. The extremely low level AI system of the satellite didn't really know anything like boredom as its sensors listened and looked out into empty space, while some of the scientific experiments that had been integrated into it were running.**

**Its not-quite electronic 'boredom' was interrupted as a red flag came from one of its sensors. A short peek into the sensory logs in question let the low level AI know that an artificial quantum even had happened, small it might be, but it was there. With a light electronic equivalent of triumph, it immediately send a burst transmission towards its mission control at Earth, including a full log from the sensor before it began to direct some of its passive sensors at the point in space where the event had happed, while it waited for a reaction coming from Earth.**

-----------------------------------------------------------------

**Commander Nakaral sneered as he thought about his orders. Here he was, the commander of a proud new Quantum 2 Cruiser of the Doranian Protectorate, and he had been ordered by a filthy hybrid to act like a Centauri.**

**He didn't like Senkal one bit, but he had to say that he liked his orders at least a little bit, even if it meant to act like a Centauri.**

**He glared at the station of the sensory technician for a moment, his eyes going over the holographic displays that relayed passive sensory data coming from about twelve years distance, the center of the Corian Expanse.**

**Alone the thought of the system that was situated there made him sneer again. To think that two whole fleets had been defeated there, by a race that was barely in space. It was unbelievable that it had happened, but it had non the less.**

**He wanted to go there and show what his new Cruiser could do, but his orders didn't allow that. He was to remain here and look for any thing these damned apes would do.**

**He chuckled. What he did now wasn't something those apes would think of. No, there couldn't be as sneaky as he was, even if his orders came from that damned hybrid.**

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**Lieutant Commander Christine Rendino, USN, raised her eyebrow she went over the information they had received not too long ago from G-039 and two other 'Eye of the Beholder' satellites, G-021 and G-044.**

**"Doranians you say," she asked.**

**Sergeant Kumar, Indian Navy, had given her the files on the data and was standing in front of her desk in the Naval Intelligence Center on Shabazza.**

**"The Quantum profiles match," he answered." But its too small... It looks more like a single ship than a large invasion or even a raiding force."**

**Christine leaned back. The whole thing was out of character for the Doranians. But than again it would have been out of character for most races in the galaxy. However it wouldn't be out of place for the humans from Earth.**

**She breathed in and chuckled slightly. Could it be that the Doranians were learning?**

**Sure it wouldn't be more easy for Earth if the Doranians were learning about 'tactics' and 'subtlety', but than again Earth was a step ahead at this moment. Mostly because the 'Eye of the Beholder' coverage towards the Narn Regime and the Doranian Protectorate was complete and no ship, not even one in Slipstream would slip through the network.**

**"It seems that the Doranians could try their hands at spying," she noted dryly." Get me the sensory logs of the other 'Beholders' in the area. I want to know where they came from. And order G-039 to keep an eye on our little spy."**

**"Aye aye, ma'am."**

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**Tenchi groaned. He could live with Battle Leader Hak'ey and he could put up with Seto and her companions if he really eeded to, but this was a little too much.**

**He was tempted to get to Earth and storm straight into the office of Admiral Jackson to give him a piece of his mind.**

**He sighed again as he looked at the three people in front of him, one of them carrying a professional camera, while the second carried sound equipment and the third was the actual problem.**

**"Lyta Alexander, CNN," the woman introduced herself.**

**Tenchi had dealt with ISN reporters several times, even another embedded reporter, so he was able to keep himself in check and shake the womans hand and actually be friendly to her. But he knew that she knew that he was forcing the smile and the friendly act.**

**"Commodore Tenchi Masaki," he said ad shook her hand." A pleasure."**

**Lyta raised an eyebrow as she looked towards Setsuna and the two Avatars of _Dark_ _Knight_ that were standing behind him.**

**"Surrounding yourself with beautiful women I see..."**

**Tenchi had more than enough control not to blush even slightly at the comment as he half turned, giving Lyta a smile.**

**"I do my best to keep away from them, but it seems that I attract them."**

**Lyta didn't have the control he had and so she blushed slightly at the compliment that wasn't really directed at her, even through she was an attractive woman, a virtual copy of the Lyta Alexander who used to be the telephat on Babylon 5.**

**"This are Setsuna, my Second in Command, D and K, the avatars of _Dark_ _Knight_."**

**Lyta blinked.**

**"Avatars?"**

**"We are the embodiments of Dark Knights Intelligence," D helped her out." Through we have our own personalities and preferences."**

**With that both avatars snug closer to their respective 'lovers'.**

**"And sometimes a pain in the ass," was the comment of _Dark_ _Knight_ herself coming from around them, while a display showed a rather normal woman.**

**Both avatars gave the redeye to the display, while Tenchi rolled his eyes.**

**"Welcome aboard, Miss Alexander."**

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**Alina couldn't help but stare at she flipped through the quantum channels. It was something of a ritual for her ever since she had gotten enough freedom in 'her masters' cabin to actually do so. A good number of channels were news, heavily laden with propaganda, while others were showing actual soap operas and the like. One of the news channels had been the Doranian News Agency, but she knew that those news were tightly controlled by the government of the Protectorate, not very unlike the news of the Soviet Union of old.**

**Now there was a new news channel or rather two of them and that was causing her to stare at the screen.**

**CNN Intergalactic and BBC. Earth based channels that were now broadcasting into the galaxy on rather exotic parts of the civil spectrum.**

**And it showed that Earth was indeed coming onto the galactic stage. At the moment CNN was showing ads, or rather a recruitment ad for the US Armed Forces, using footage that seemed to be genuine. She remembered the large Hollywood sign to be from Los Angeles and saw how human soldiers were fighting Doranian Power Armored troops. How A-10 dropped bombs on troop concentrations or an Apache fired a missile at a Heavy Powered Armor.**

**That was followed by a news broadcast, titled 'The Doranian War'. The entire thing was covered by positive propaganda about the so called GDI, its fleet and operations that were currently going on.**

**She could feel how tears welled up in her eyes and began to roll over her muzzle.**

**If Earth had survived a Doranian Invasion and had a fleet, she could hope for freedom.**

**As she heard the door going behind her, she switched off the channel, hoping that Senkal nor any other Doranian would ever discover CNN or BBC. If they did, it could be a great problem for Earth.**


	48. Chapter 48

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 47

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**Petersen breathed in deep. Three hours had gone by since the first attempt to communicate with the Shin'bi vessels, followed by the pirate attack. The pirates had damaged his ship, but _Mainz_ was still in the shape to fight. The battle damage was limited to the loss of one fin of the gravitic drive, one plasma drive unit and some damage of the hull armor in the engineering section. The sensors reported a loss of about 50 percent of armor thickness in the damaged sections. But nothing that couldn't be repaired by a week in dock.**

**Petersen was glad that _Mainz_ and all other space ship designs that were used by GDI were highly modular.**

**"What is taking them so long to answer us?" he heard Von Bismark ask concerned.**

**Haruka, who was standing right next to him, snorted.**

**"They are communicating with each other and their home country," she said.**

**Petersen chuckled.**

**"I guess we would check in with our government too if we had such a pirate and slaver problem."**

**"Even than..." Bismark sighed." How come that you don't pick up any communication. Surely they are using radio."**

**"Could be laser link com," Mainach noted." If you aren't directly inside the laser beam you are not likely to pick it up. We are using laser links for the TacNet during battle situations."**

**Petersen sighed and looked back at the display that showed the two Shin'bi spaceships in a false color image, with an overlay of the IR image where they could see the blooms of the active laser point defense blasting micro meteoroids into stardust.**

**"Speak of the devil," ****Leutnant zur See (OF-1) Schürmann, the communications technician, noted dryly." It seems they are ready to talk to us. Audio only."**

**Petersen nodded.**

**"Put it through on the big speakers."**

**"Who are you?" was the first question coming over the speakers, spoken by a purposely male Shin'bi in the same accent the Shin'bi aboard _Mainz_ had.**

**"I'm Korvettenkapitän Daniel Petersen. I am in command of the Raumflotten Cutter _Mainz_ under the Global Defensive Initiative of the planet Terra."**

**Petersen had decided to use the latin name for Earth as it slowly began to replace 'Earth' in the media and even more slowly in the use of the GDI.**

**"What do you want?" was the next question, coming a few minutes after he had answered.**

**"We want to return several members of your people who have been rescued due to a lucky coincidence. We have saved them from slavery under the Doranians, with whom we are currently in a state of war."**

**There was a longer pause and the tension in the room nearly could be tasted.**

**"I want to talk to them," demanded the voice.**

**Petersen and just about everyone in the Command Center looked directly at Haruka and the other Shin'bi.**

**"You speak with Haruka of the Ichijinnokaze Clan," she just stated.**

**The tension raised some more as everyone waited for the answer.**

**"Tell me the name of the Clans founder, where he was born and what made him special."**

**Haruka breathed in deep, before she answered.**

**"Saitaku Yakuwara, born in Nagasaki during the reign of Emporess Genmei in Nippon."**

**At that moment just about everyone stared at her. Nippon was the same as Japan and it was very unlikely that ****Zaitaku had a city named Nagasaki, through it was possible.**

**"He wasn't Shin'bi. He brought my clan his way of life and sired twelve children of which five became the founders of five other clans."**

**Again there was a silence.**

**"Name the clans."**

**"The ****Yokokaze Clan, the Amakaze Clan, the K**arakaze Clan, the Hageshiikaze Clan and the Matsukaze Clan."

**"It was all correct," the voice said." You are speaking to ****Katai of the Yokokaze Clan, commander of the _Kogatana_. I believe that Hanshi Nataru was killed during your abduction?"**

**"Yes. But he died fighting."**

**"Good. May I speak to Korvettenkapitän Daniel Petersen?"**

**Petersen let out the breath he didn't remember holding.**

**"You can speak, Katai-san."**

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**"WHAT?"**

**Commander Nakaral was furious. He couldn't believe his ears as he stared at his sensory technician. Said technician had shrunk a little as his commander glared daggers at him.**

**"The entire fleet in that system is moving. Course vector indicates that they are leaving the system."**

**"The target!" Nakaral demanded, stepping closer to the technician, looking ready to rip his head off.**

**The technician looked as if he was about to soil himself at the imposing figure of his commander only amplified by the fact that the technician was smaller than the average Doranian.**

**"Magna Doran..."**

**Nakaral stopped in his tracks. His eyes widened and he stared at the technician for a moment before he stared at the sensory display behind the technician. Suddenly he turned around and began to yell orders.**

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**Lieutenant Commander Christine Rendino chuckled as she looked at the hologram that was floating in front of Admiral Dubinin, showing the face of Commodore Masaki. Both of her superior officers had shit eating grins parting their faces.**

**"It really wasn't needed that you use the entire Home Guard to escort us to the rim of the Expanse," Masaki said and Christine was trying very hard not to laugh out loud.**

**"Oh, it was a pleasure to do this, Commodore," Dubinin responded." It's not every day that GDI gets to support an hopeful ally."**

**"And the scouts you sent further out?"**

**"Just a sneak preview into one of the main Doranian systems, just a short peek at it nothing more."**

**Both shared a silent laugh.**

**"Anything else I might want to know before you return to Earth, Admiral?"**

**If possible the smiles of both men became wider and if the ears weren't there they would smile around their entire head.**

**"It seems that the Doranians have pulled a good number of ships from the Narn front. At least that is what the Beholders in behind enemy lines report."**

**"Well, lets hope for the Doranians that no one will tell the Narn. We will talk later, Admiral."**

**"Until later Commodore."**

**The sheer dryness of Masakis last comment was too much for Christine. She fell back into a chair and laughed like she had never laughed before in her entire life.**

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**Lady Seto was a little put of by the entire display that Tenchi had given her in the last hour since the entire Earth fleet had left the Solar system and crawled towards the edge of the Corian Expanse, while she knew that they could move much faster. The scouts they had send deep into Doranian space certainly did.**

**And than there was the strange dialog with Admiral Dubinin. She could feel that they were up to something.**

**Ever since that conversation with Battle Leader Hak'ey and the rules Tenchi had layed down at that time, she was a bit wary if it she had done the right thing. Especially since she had thought that Tenchi would do whjat she said. But he wasn't going to do that. She wasn't really used to people who knew how to lead their people.**

**For a moment she shuddered at seeing the smile Tenchi wore after shutting down the communication with Dubinin.**

**Tenchi clapped his hands.**

**"Okay, people set course towards Konosac. And I'm pretty sure that you would like to know what this was all about."**

**Oh yes, Seto thought. Konosac was in a completely different direction than the course vector the fleet had gone while leaving the Corian Expanse. And there was that smile again.**

**"Well," Tenchi started," it seems that the Doranians were trying to spy at us. But several of our Beholders have spied the little spy."**

**Seto sweatdropped. Tenchi was behaving like a kid at this moment.**

**"And since we know it was there, we wanted to give them a show for their money and to play some cat and mouse. Just that we are the cats in this case. The spy hightailed towards Doranian space as soon as the scouts left the system and from the info we got from them, he stayed in front of the scouts and out of range of us and Home Guard."**

**Seto narrowed her eyes, wondering what came next.**

**"The last info dumps from Doranian controlled Narn space indicate that the Doranians have pulled about half of their fleet from all systems that are not directly on or near the front lines. The course vector of one fleet indicates that they are going after Earth, while the rest is going towards Magna Doran, the end of the course vector we used to leave the Expanse."**

**Now Seto saw what Tenchi was going to say.**

**"The Doranians are going to await a massive attack on Magna Doran, while attacking a supposedly defenseless Earth. That is going to allow us to strike deep into the Doranian controlled space while the Doranians are going to weaken themselves."**

**Tenchi made a pause. Seto was impressed. She was known to use unorthodox tactics and stategies, but this was something different. A chuckle let her turn towards Hak'ey, who was standing away from Seto and her companions.**

**"Now all we need to do is plan an attack on Kotok."**

**Another thing she wasn't used to. Tenchi would attack the Doranians behind their front lines? Just to attack one planet?**

**"Miller, I need a conference link to the commanders of the other ships while we are on our way towards Konosac."**

**"Aye, sir."**

**"Setsuna, you got the Con."**

**With that Tenchi left the bridge towards one of the briefing rooms. Seto followed him. She was going to find out what Tenchi was up to.**

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**Tenchi stood in the main fleet briefing rooms. It was mostly empty, but that changed fast as the holographic projectors began to work, creating full holographic representations of the commanders of the fleet and a star map between them.**

**Than Lady Seto, her people and Hak'ey entered the room. Tenchi frowned as he looked into their direction, but didn't comment.**

**The last hologram to appear was that of main line _Dark Knight_.**

**"Okay," Tenchi began." What do we know about Kotok since the invasion from the Doranians?"**

**_Dark_ _Knight_ cleared her throat.**

**"We know quite a bit," she said." Nautilus placed a Beholder into the out system a month ago and the spooks at Naval Intelligence were able to put the infos together to a coherent picture."**

**The holographic display of the star map changed showing Narn space as a blue body, while the Doranian controlled part was colored red.**

**"As you can see the Doranians have managed to take a quarter of Narn space, with about twenty major and about thirty minor colonies. And the most important for the whole invasion is Kotok."**

**The dot that represented Kotok flashed red, before zooming in, showing a simplified version of the system.**

**"The thing that makes Kotok interesting in the second planet. Its class M and a major colony of the Narn. And it used to be one of the most important trade worlds of the Narn until the Doranian invasion. That means a complete logistic infrastructure that fell into the Doranians hands, who are using now for their own logistics. That is the thing that makes Kotok the most important planet to the Doranians."**

**The other commanders and captains nodded.**

**"However, due to the kind of warfare that is used in the galaxy, and our little faint, Most of the fleet that protects Kotok has been pulled towards Magna Doran. At this moment our Beholder reads not much more than twenty Doranians Cruisers and five Dreadnoughts. And not much in the way of fixed orbital defenses."**

**Tenchi nodded. It seemed that most if not all races didn't really believe in damaging the enemies logistics, but rather in straight forward battles of dominion. But than again neither had mankind until the first World War, when German subs first began to attack transports en mass, while blockading used to be a good method to starve the enemy. Much like the races of the galaxy.**

**He chuckled slightly as he thought that blockading Earth wouldn't do much good as the homeworld of man was completely autark in just about every aspect of life.**

**"Do we have any data on Logistic complexes used by the Doranians," he heard Captain Williams, the commander of _USS_ _Potomac_ asked.**

**The third planet was zoomed in and than a surface map.**

**"While the Doranians appear to use most of the Narn logistics, we have found several space ports in the Southern Dessert, far away from any civilian population. They aren't in the Narn maps, so they have to be put up by the Doranians."**

**Tenchi walked closer to the display. There was already a plan forming in the back of his mind.**

**"I guess that we could take Kotok, but the question is... Can we keep Kotok? Or would the attack be a simple raid to destroy as much logistics as possible?"**

**There was a pause and a glance over to Seto gave him some insight into her thoughts. She may not show them like so many others, but being a good commanding officer, Tenchi knew how to read people. And Seto was very disturbed and anxious.**

**"Not very high. We'd need a large number of ships to hold Kotok on our own. And even with the Narn fleet holding Kotok would be a problem."**

**Tenchi nodded.**

**"Okay, I want you to create an orbital bombardment pattern, keep the civilian losses at a minimum. No civilians would be the absolute best."**

**_Dark Knight_ nodded, while Tenchi addressed the rest of the commanders.**

**"This was just a short briefing, the actual planning of the operation will be done when we have meet up with the Narn fleet and _Nautilus_. Dismissed."**


	49. Chapter 49

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 48 (Party written by Psychosama over at the Maximum Addventure)

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**Rei of the Hinoke Clan closed her eyes for a moment, looking for her center and shutting out the mind whispers of the Shin'bi around her. Some times it was hard to ignore the omnipresent whisperings of the minds around her and only her training and her sheer force of will prevented her from loosing herself in those whispers.**

**Her parents had always told her that she was fortunate that she was the most powerful of the Hinoke born in the long line of careful breeding that was part of her clan as was the mental discipline. She herself was proud to be what she was, but at the same time she felt like being cursed. Very early her parents and the heads of her clan had set her up with an iinazuke and she knew him since that time.**

**A glance went over to her now husband, Akira. While Rei was maybe the most powerful telepath, Akira was one of the most powerful telekinetics and the clan were hoping to combine the two abilities in their offspring.**

**But just because their marriage had been set up by the clan and that they had grown up together didn't mean that they didn't love each other as husband and wife. The love between them maybe went even deeper. While the clan wanted an offspring between the two of them, it wasn't forcing anything. In the long history they had learned that they couldn't force anything, not to mention that forcing something like that was going against the cores of Shin'bi believes.**

**Just like the arrogance of the young generation towards the other Shin'bi. But than again, hadn't she and Akira been like that before learning humility by the hands and minds of their elders?**

**Rei sighed, thinking of the here and now. She had been ordered to Fukumishisan, one of the hidden stations that had been build during the long time since the first slavers and pirates had began to plague Zaitaku and the rest of the system. Build inside one of the asteroid moons of Zaitaku, Fukumishisan was one of the larger stations, able to service up to thirty ships at the same time, even up the size of the Hikaru Tenno class.**

**Her presence was needed on Fukumishisan, ever since the pirates had found the station Hiken. Her great mental strength was essential for clouding the minds of any pirate that came into the range of her ability. While she wasn't able to kill them with with a single thought, she could hide Fukumishisan from their perception and confuse them slightly. Three pirate ships had fallen to her ability and than had been destroyed by the ships docked with Fukumishisan.**

**Now her order was similar, at least to a point. She wasn't going to cloud or confuse minds, she was rather ordered to listen to the minds of these Terrans that had come to Zaitaku, claiming to have rescued several Shin'bi from slavery and now bringing them back. But being Shin'bi, the paranoia towards gaijin ran deep. The Alliance, the loose amalgamation of the nations of Zaitaku, had given her the order to determine if they were telling the truth, while they docked with Fukumishisan. Akira was with her to provide her with strength and stability she would need when she listened to the alien minds.**

**She breathed in deep as she looked at the airlock. Behind it the _Mainz_, the Terran ship, being close to the size of a Hikaru Tenno, was docked with the station. She wasn't the only one present. Ten of the best soldiers were facing the airlock, dressed in their normal stealth armor, six of them blending into the surroundings with little more than a slight wavering in the air. And there was Minako of the Yokokaze clan, the commander of the station.**

**She was different to most Shin'bi. She preferred to directly attack, not waiting for the best time to attack. Her bionic arm was telling that she had payed her cost for it. But loosing her arm was just strengthening her in her ways and she presented the gleaming metallic arm proudly, going as far as cutting of the sleeve that would normally cover the arm. It was an open secret that the arm had a pair of vibro claws and an integrated gauss gun.**

**Rei head Akira draw in a sharp breath and looked towards the airlock as it cycled open.**

**Three people were coming through the airlock at the same time. Two of them were humanoids, much like most of the races of the galaxy as the Shin'bi had learned, while the third was a Shin'bi. The two humanoids were dressed in khaki colored uniforms, while the Shin'bi wore what any Shin'bi of her age wore, together with a metal belt that presented the symbol of her clan, the Ichijinnokaze Clan.**

**They were followed by several other Shin'bi. Like the first one, they were looking normal and wore pieces of clothing with the symbol of the Ichijinnokaze Clan.**

**The group moved towards the greeting squad and stopped a few meters in front of them. Than they bowed before one of the humanoids spoke.**

**"I'm Korvettenkapitän Daniel Petersen, commander of the _Mainz_."**

**Rei closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating to scan the mind of Petersen. As she opened her eyes again, she was bemused. Petersen wasn't showing any form of negative thoughts or emotions she knew from the pirates, rather he was nervous and in a way awed by them.**

**She shot a short glance towards Minako, combined with a short mental message.**

**"Welcome on ****Fukumishisan, Comander Petersen," Minako answered, returning the respectful bow.**

**As the pleasantries between Petersen and Minako continued, Rei concentrated on the other humanoid. As she attempted to scan him, she saw herself opposed by a solid mental block. Several times she tried to break through the block or find a way around it, but as the man turned to give her a short glance in wonder, she stopped. Never in her life she had encountered something like this. Maybe she could talk to the man later on.**

**A few moments later the name of the man was revealed. Joachim Fürst von Bismark, from a short glance into Petersens mind, she knew that man to be aristocraty, but the way he behaved and Petersens thoughts were different to those she knew to be directed towards Shin'bi nobility of some nations. To Petersen von Bismark was more of an equal.**

**Than she moved towards the first Shin'bi, Haruka of the ****Ichijinnokaze Clan. The mind of Haruka was clearer to her than those of the humanoids, but that was to be expected. Haruka was aware of being in the presence of two members of the ****Hinoke Clan and knew that she would be scanned by a telephat. Haruka was actively opening her mind to Rei, fully well knowing that none of the ****Hinoke Clan would ever go deep enough to get to the private thoughts.**

**Scanning Harukas thoughts she found several very interesting things. She hadn't been manipulated in any way. No memory looked like it had been changed, no overlaying multiple memories. She and the others of her group had actively, with von Bismarks help taken over a slaver ship, before being rescued by a Terran ship. Than they had lived on the Terran homeworld for several month, visiting the nations of the planet and even finding a nation that called itself Nippon, or Japan.**

**The most surprising was a personal thing, but it was so intense that Rei couldn't help but notice. Haruka was in love with von Bismark and he was in love with her.**

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**Ryoko was nervous as she entered the Oval Office. It was almost funny, really. President Ryan was a normal human, totally powerless and utterly defenseless before her yet his presence created such an anxiety in her. She who had dueled with princes, laid waste to palaces, and had devastated dynasties was sweating bullets at the prospect of meeting him. Maybe it was because this man was the leader the nation that had given her a home. The leader of HER country, and by that, her leader.**

While she had not voted for him. She paused and smiled in her thoughts. Voted. What a strange, but somehow encouraging concept. The whole liberal democracy thing just blew her mind. Elected leaders, checks and balances, the will of the people. Hell, the human idea that the government should fear its people and not vice versa just made her feel somehow more comfortable. She'd seen countless corrupt regimes in her time, and the idea of a governmental system based around the idea that the government was accountable to the people. It made being accepted by this country so much more... special. They didn't only give her a home, they made her one of their people, and while she knew that in the end, her voice would be only one among a hundred million, it still made her feel like a part of something greater.

"Miss Hakubi?" President Ryan said, breaking her train of thought, "Are you alright?"

Ryoko blinked and flushed as she looked into the expectant and somewhat confused eyes of the President of the United States. "Sorry, Mr. President, I just got a little lost and thought."

Jack Ryan smiled with mirth, and motioned to one of the chairs sitting before his desk. "Please, take a seat, and if you'd like, you can call me Jack."

Ryoko grinned and sat down. She could not believe that she was actually feeling a bit giddy. "Thanks, Jack. Call me Ryoko."

He nodded. "Alright Ryoko, I guess you're wondering why you're here."

She nodded and fought down a ting of fear. A shadowy chill of dread made its way up her spine as a spear of self doubt shot into her heart. Was her going to change his mind? She'd tried to be a good American... Now while she knew on a mental level that they would not do that, on an emotional level, that was something different. Things had been going too well for her. The Pope gave her absolution for her sins, the Dali Lama had actually helped the Federation Ambassador understand that the things she had done under Kagato's control were not really her choice, and she had a home. Something was bound to go wrong, was this it?

Jack frowned slightly, picking up on her discomfort. "Is there something wrong, Ryoko?"

"You're not going to take away my citizenship," she squeaked, "Are you?"

Jack's jaw dropped as a look of utter shock and disbelief overtook his features. "Why the hell would we do a thing like that?"

"I don't know," she muttered, "Its just…"

"Ryoko," Jack stated with an almost paternal tone. " Now, I know your past, I know what the rest of the galaxy is like, but that's not how we do things on Earth and that's not how we do them in this country. You're an American and unless you willingly give that up or commit high treason, you'll be one until the day you die. So just don't go around selling state secrets and we'll be fine."

Ryoko loosed a breath that she didn't even know she'd been holding as one of the last of her aching fears was alleviated.

President Ryan smiled. "Now, what have you been up to since you stopped gallivanting around with world leaders?"

"I've been traveling around the country," she replied.

"How do you like it?" he asked.

"I love it. Its so much more diverse than I thought it would be. So many kinds of people, so many life styles... you could spend a year on just the foods! It's heard to believe that all of this is from just one planet! And the people are nice too. No one looks down on me, no one calls me a monster or a monster..." Ryoko beamed. "I was visiting a Hispanic neighborhood a few weeks ago and they even threw a party in my honor!"

"Been a world renowned heroine has its advantages I guess," Ryan observed.

"Its just so nice!" she paused for a moment and frowned slightly. "The only problem I had were these lunatics in white sheets and pointy hats to called me a devil and talked about 'white power' and ranted on about race..."

The President sighed in exasperation. "The problem with Freedom of Speech is that everyone has it, even the idiots."

"So those people are not normal?"

"They're the Ku Klux Klan, a fringe group of radicals and an unfortunate lasting remnant of a less enlightened period of this nation's history. They're fringe lunatics. Don't let them get to you."

Ryoko grinned. "I didn't. I'd say that I more got to them."

Jack blinked. "You didn't kill anyone, did you?"

Ryoko smirked. "Nope, but I kicked them out of the town they were in. The locals seemed to like that. It was fun."

Jack smiled. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself."

Ryoko nodded and took a deep breath. "Jack, can I ask you a question?"

"Go ahead."

Ryoko sighed. "I love exploring the country, but I've been feeling kinda useless lately. I mean, Washu is helping with the war effort, Tenchi is off fighting, and here I am going to parties. It doesn't feel right. I want to be doing something to help..."

"I'm glad you brought that up," Jack responded, "Because that's actually why I asked you here today."

She blinked. "It is?"

"I asked you here to give you this," the President stated as he handed her a document bound in a protective leather envelope.

"What is it?" Ryoko asked.

"It is a 'Letter of Marque and Reprisal'," he replied.

Ryoko blinked. "A what?"

"A Letter of Marque makes you a government authorized agent with the right to seize and destroy assets belonging to belligerent powers. In essence, it makes you a government sponsored pirate, a Privateer."

Ryoko gawked. "You mean you'll let me fight?"

"Actually," Jack replied, "I'd say I'd like to encourage it."

Ryoko threw down the letter and phased through the desk, giving the president a strong hug.

"Thank you! Now I can help Tenchi!"

Jack chuckled lightly, more than a bit embarrassed. "You're welcome!"

Ryoko backed off and returned to the other side of the desk. Floating around anxiously she rambled off. "I have to tell Ryu-oh-ki, I'll have to tell Washu, I need to get a crew..." she smiled and saluted the President. "I'll make you proud sir."

With that said, she grabbed her letter and teleported away.

The president blinked for a moment, then shook his head with a sigh before hitting his intercom. "Tell Mr. Fisher to come in, and send another meeting request to Miss. Hakubi..." 

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**"A pleasure to meet you, General G'Kot," Tenchi said as the slightly overweight Narn and his companions entered the main briefing room of _Dark Knight_.**

**Captain Ramsey and the other commanders of his fleet had come aboard the ship some time earlier, using the Ferron transmitter system that would be set up on all GDI ship, at least until Washuu finally sold the patent rights of her portal transmitter to a company. As far as Tenchi knew, Otis, Kawasaki, General Electrics, Siemens-Nixdorf and Saab were trying to by the rights.**

**Ramsey had already briefed Tenchi on the Narn situation and every new piece of information that was needed.**

**"Likewise, Commodore Masaki," G'Kot answered.**

**Tenchi nodded, being glad that Dark Knight had distracted Seto, her companions and the CNN crew from this meeting.**

**"I think we should come down to the point, General," Tenchi said." And begin with the planning of the first operation."**

**G'Kot raised the Narn equivalent to the human eyebrow.**

**"While I like that you come to the point, I fail to see why we should plan an operation this early. I need to know about the capabilities of your ships first."**

**"Time is of essence at the moment, General," Tenchi answered." I believe that Captain Ramsey failed to forward our informations to you."**

**G'Kot looked over to Ramsey, who shrugged with a strange smile on his face.**

**"It would seem that way."**

**Tenchi nodded again.**

**"Okay," Tenchi began," The Doranians have withdrawn about half of their ship from the front lines in Narn space to strengthen one of their main systems against an attack that won't come and try and invade my homeworld a third time."**

**G'Kot blinked.**

**"What?" he asked bewildered.**

**Tenchi grinned.**

**"We have found a scout ship that was observing our home system and had a little show with them. Our entire fleet left the system for Magna Doran, before returning back to Sol at arriving at the edge of the Corian Expanse. The Doranians have swallowed out little bait and pulled ships from the only source where they can get a larger number of combat ready ships. The Narn front."**

**Realization dawned in the Narn generals eyes.**

**"Leaving them overextended at the front lines," he said and Tenchi grinned some more.**

**"Not only that. They also took most of their ships from the already taken systems. That leaves them open for attacks inside the territory they have taken."**

**G'Kot nodded.**

**"I believe you already have a plant how to use that weakness."**

**Tenchi grinned again, evil this time.**

**"But of cause. One I am sure you are going to like, General. While its not going to take any planet back, it will make fighting the Doranians more easy and will cut them off from their logistics support."**

**G'Kot frowned slightly.**

**"You mean attacking their freighters and support stations? I don't know what to think of that."**

**Tenchi raised an eyebrow.**

**"Well, look at it this way, General," he tried." The Doranians are using Kotok as logistics center, filtering all their support good through that system. If we destroy that base, they have to either rebuild the support base on Kotok or look for a new base. Either way, they will be weaker because they are lacking support."**

**He breathed in.**

**"We have saying on Earth. 'Amateurs study strategy and tactics. Professionals study logistics.' It always the logistic support that wins a war. If you can cut off the enemy from his logistics, you not only damage his capability to act and force him to wait for ammunition, reaction mass and food, but you also damage his moral. And a weak moral of the enemy is also helping you to win a war."**

**He grinned again.**

**"Not to mention that Kotok is an easy target at this moment. But only with the right distraction from the real objective of the operation."**

**G'Kot closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in deep.**

**"Okay," he said," tell me of your plan and that we see if we can do something."**


	50. Chapter 50

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 49

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**Loud explosions tore through the previously nearly silent network of caves, closely followed by the first screams and Arabic curses. The staccato like hammering of automatic weapons tore through the caves, coming from AK-47, MP-5 and M-4. More explosions followed, again followed by screams.**

**This was something akin to routine even since the New Allies had invaded Afghanistan to overthrow the Taiban, retaliate against Al Quaeda and, hopefully, extract the initiator of the acts of nuclear terrorism, Osama Bin Laden.**

**Deep within the caves, at the moment only protected by about twenty Taliban, Muhamed Al Ahmad let his fingers dance over the keyboard of the not quite surplus laptop many Al Quaeda cells used. He was just glad that the last plans had been copied to a USB stick and send towards Zabol in Iran. They were the finishing touch to what would be the final Jihad.**

**As the screams of dying of brothers in faith came closer, he stared intensely at the display as he formated the harddrive of the laptop. As it reached 100 percent he breathed in deep, before taking his AK-74. He directed the weapon at the laptop and fired, destroying the laptop as best as he could. He hoped that formating the harddrive and physically destroying the laptop was enough to keep the plans out of the hands of the American infidels.**

**Muhamed closed his eyes for a moment and muttered a short prayer, priming the vest of explosives he had put on after hearing the first explosions. The detonator in his one hand, his grip on his assault rifle intensified as he kicked open the door to his part of the cave and charged towards the Army Rangers that were assaulting the caves.**

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**Even if he disliked traitors out of principle, Army Lieutenant Oliver Barns had to say that the informations his platoon had proven correct so far. Even if it was highly unlikely that he would find either Bin Laden or any other AQ leader here, that traitor had spoken of informations of 'great importance'.**

**"La ilaha illallah!" was a scream that ripped him from his thoughts and his head whipped around towards a part of the cave network that had been ignored until now.**

**And he stared at an arab that was charging at them, the AK-74 in his hands firing wildly at his soldiers. That was until the fire of several M-4 and MP-5 started to rip into his torso, arms and legs. The arab tumbled onto the ground, the speed he had been running at causing him to slide about a meter over the wet rock of the cave.**

**Private O'Brian, one of the men of Alpha Squad, walked over to the man who now lay face first on the ground, groans still coming from the heavily bleeding body. The soldier turned the man around with the tip of his boot.**

**A very painful groan let O'Brian look into the face of the man and the strange facial expression, a smile that was mixed with a sense of bliss.**

**"Subhan Allah," was whispered by the man on the ground, blood flowing from the corners of his mouth.**

**"O'BRIAN! GET AWAY FROM HIM!"**

**O'Brian blinked as he heard the shout of Lieutenant Barns. Not having the time to react, he could only stare in horror as a small box rolled out of the arabs hand and at the explosive vest before his universe reduced itself to a blinding light, a loud sound and a feeling of pain before fading into nothingness.**

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**"It es always a pleasure doink business wit you," the man opposite to him said with a smile, the heavy Russian accent in his Spanish making him sound off to the ears of Rodolfo Suárez.**

**Rodolfo didn't really like to do business with the Russians, but in this case it was easier to get to the Russian Mafia and purchase the bits and pieces they needed than building them on their own. Especially when it came to parts they needed to build blockade runners like the three that were currently taking shape in the jungle around Medellín.**

**Rodolfo had learned much during the time he had worked under Felix Cortez and for Ernesto Escobedo. And he was using that knowledge that made him to the trusted right hand of Carlos Egaz.**

**Rodolfo looked behind the big Russian and at the number of large container trucks that were containing 'farm equipment'. He wanted to snort. In a sense they were farming equipment, as those fusion reactors, plasma drives, life support systems, shields and slipstream drives would allow the Cartel to search for new markets in the galaxy and 'farm' them.**

**The Russian laughed and his body guards and thugs piled into several vans, before driving away. **

**Rodolfo shook his head as he made a gesture that caused his own men to get into the trucks and drive them towards the places where the blockade runners were build. He snorted as he thought that those ships were based on a design they had found in the Earth Force Files, as they were commonly called. Some modification here and there and they were able to work with more powerful reactors and drives, allowing them to pull high accelerations to get away from any known pursuer.**

**Than he grinned. He had several engineers on his call and they were working to build two or three of those massive Ion and laser Cannons. That way the Cartel could enter the very profitable business of piracy.**

**Even if those things they bought from the Russians was more than twice as expansive than building them their selves, they were saving time and in the long run they would get much more profit. And Rodolfo would get his share of the big cake.**

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**Vasili Bushkin looked out of the window of his office in St. Petersburg. He was a man with two sides. On one side he was a very respectable businessman, running several industrial complexes in Sibiria and owning a good sixth of the Russian oil fields, and on the other side he was the leader of a good portion of the Russian Mafia.**

**In a sense it was irony that his industrial complexes were now back to building parts for the growing Russian space navy, reactors, plasma drives, life support systems, shields and the like. Parts that weren't only in high demand in Russia. He was selling them to just about everyone and several of them, mostly 'declared' to be 'junk' were sold on the black market.**

**His men had just finished a very good deal with the Medellín Cartel, enough systems to build a few small space ships. Other systems had been sold to Marshal Luo Cong, the leader of the 'Republic of China'. As far as Bushkin knew the dear Marshal wanted to build a few Monsoons on his own.**

**Even more profitable had been his dealing with several Arabic 'businessmen'. He had done business early last year, selling them a good dozen of nuclear warheads from R-36 missiles that had rusted in their silos. He knew that nuclear material of those warheads had been used in the nuclear terroristic attacks last year, but he couldn't really figure out how those had been so powerful.**

**Bushkin shrugged as he looked over St. Petersburg. He didn't really care. They had been paying him like anyone else.**

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**Colonel Lee Jong-sung frowned. He didn't like to work with these fanatics, because they were just that. Fanatics in every sense of the word. But he had to. He knew that he would be dead otherwise.**

**For a moment he closed his eyes. He couldn't really believe that it was just a month since he started working with them, here in this forsaken piece of dessert.**

**He shook his head. Even if they were fanatics, they had the same goal. Fight against the western nations, and most importantly the United States. They had, with the help of South Korea destroyed his country. He had been in Namp'o, observing the construction of the two first Northern Korean Monsoons, as the Chairman had launched the missiles at Southern Korea.**

**Lee had known immediately that his country wouldn't survive, but he was damned if he would let the part of the Monsoons fall into the Southerns hands. So he had ordered to take the little they had put together apart and load it on as many freighters as they could.**

**Just a day before the Southern Koreans were coming to his particular part of Namp'o they had left port and made best speed towards the Middle East. Little did he know that Al Quaeda would come to him and propose a working relationship.**

**Later when the pieces of the Monsoons had been unloaded the fanatics made quite clear that Lee and his men were to work with them or be dealt with extreme prejudice.**

**Now he was here and observed how his men, women and the fanatics put together a massive ship from the parts that were meant to become two different ships. And what they hadn't in actual hardware that was improvised. Hell, they were building the two Particle Cannons of the Monsoon into a single turret partly covered by the prow armor of one Monsoo, while the rest was little more than an open structure of steel I beams. Than there was also that long 'middleship', build from a larger number of freight containers.**

**It was an abomination that took shape in the middle of the dessert, right under the nose of American reconnaissance satellites. Most likely the Americans thought that Iran was building the ship.**

**Lee shook his head. There was another reason for him to work with those fanatics. Not the fear of being 'dealt with', but also the hatred and the need for vengeance against the western world. Something he shared with Al Quaeda.**

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Captain Sergei Iljitsch Iwanov licked his dry lips and closed his eyes for a moment. A last glance went to the picture of his family that was stuck to the canopy of the MiG-37 Viper prototype he was about to fly. The picture was showing his family and, most importantly, his sister Susan.

He breathed in deep and his eyes want over the instruments that were originating from the MiG-29, like the rest of the cockpit and most of the avionics. Only a few instruments and the rather large monitor, reminiscent of the Americanski F-22, were new, showing him the information he would need in space.

"Everything looks okay," he called over the radio.

"Than commerce with ignition sequence."

"Affirmative."

Sure, he had flown the MiG-37 a few times, but that had been in the atmosphere and the Viper had handled like a dream, responding smoothly and exactly to his commands. Maybe it were the thrusters that made handling more easy while in the atmosphere, but he wasn't willing to bet on it.

Slowly his hand moved towards the switches of the ignition system and pulled up the caps before switching them to the other position. Not so far behind him three Kilmov RS-3 turbines began to whine as the energy of four fusion cells flew through them, pulling in air to turn it into a high energy plasma.

He watched the display as the indicators of the turbines climbed into the green and their optimal operating range.

"Requesting permission for lift off."

"You have permission for lift off, Viper One. Everything looks good."

Iwanov was glad for the telemetric links that was going to the test center. It would make sure that everything was going on correctly.

He pulled the breaks and the Viper began to roll down the runway. It was faster than the F-29 he had flown before, not much of a surprise considering that the three plasma turbines behind him had the thrust to accelerate him at more than ten times Earth gravity, at least according to the engineers.

The runway speed by and the end came at him at a fast pace.

As the speed climbed to more than 400 kilometers per hour, the speed he needed to pull the short winged space plane from the ground. But even than, the sheer thrust of his turbines still made it a short take off, basically making the Viper a STOL plane.

The flight plan was easy for the day. Pull the Viper into the 90 degree climb and push the turbines to the limit to get into space. Reach orbital velocity and than, after one orbit, make a reentry and get back to Earth.

So he pulled the Vipers nose up towards the sky, pushing the turbines to maximum and letting the thrust of the turbines push him towards space. The Viper shook briefly as she accelerated to and past the sonic barrier, pushing Iwanov into his ejection seat with four times Earth gravity as the turbines still had to fight against the atmosphere.

He felt strange as the miniature rocket, that was Earth' first self-developed space plane pushed through the thicker low atmosphere and the sky began to get darker and darker. He breathed evenly, briefly wondering if Juri Gagarin had felt the same.

Silently he watched as the meters in the HUD climbed towards and over the maximum ceiling he had pushed with a MiG-29, about 18,231 meters and far past his personal best speed he had pulled during a supersonic dive, 2510 kilometers per hours.

The sky continued to darken and soon he found it being pitch black. He had thought that he would see stars, but the only things he could see, were two of the Solar Trees that orbited Earth high above him.

He glanced sideways and idly noted that he could see the curve of Earth from his altitude and a good portion of Earth below, with the Caspian Sea gleaming close to the horizon.

His head moved back and snorted as the Viper had passed Mach 6.85, easily breaking the speed record of the X-15 of 1967.

Soon after he heard a short thunderclap echoing through the structure of the Viper, letting him know that the turbines had switched from using atmosphere to space mode, the three engines now drawing from the reaction mass of the Viper.

The indicators went back into the low area of their meters very briefly before climbing back to their previous reading. At the same time the acceleration died down for a brief moment vefore coming back twice as powerful as before.

The speed climbed faster now, as did the altitude.

As the altimeter climbed over the 100 kilometers mark, even through his speed was still under Mach 20, he smiled.

"Welcome to space, Sergei," he told himself." Welcome to space."

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"BE CAREFUL WITH THAT THING!"

Foreman Jack Wolf lowered his radio and frowned as he looked how Team Three moved the final of eight Warhammer plasma gatlings into its foundation. Just some patches of two meter thick armor here and there and _USS Freedom_ would be finished as the first Monsoon build on Earth.

Wolfs eyes went around and at the other five Monsoons that were nearly finished sitting next to Freedom in the converted dry docks of Norfolk. And than there were several more Monsoons in various states of construction, like _USS Gettisburg_ who was curretly not much more than the groundwork, some armor plates, reactors and got her Particle Cannon installed.

Even further away he could see the area where whole sections of a **Warlock** were super build. Together with several other places in the US, the Warlock would be finished and put together in space in about three month if nothing went wrong.

He grinned as he watched how Team Three began to connect the high energy lines, command systems and the reaction mass feed to the Warhammer. Even if he had to kick his teams asses, he was finishing Freedom more than a week before schedule, even if he had had several problems, like one hectare of armor that had the wrong thickness and specification.

He snorted at that thought, here he had to deal with whole hectares of armor that was thicker than that of most battleships during First or Second World War.

And than there was the fact that most of his men weren't even trained for this job. Hell, no one was really trained to build spaceships like this. Wolf himself used to build oil rigs for the Gulf of Mexico in Mississippi.

The entire program to build up new industries nearly from scratch, especially production and subcontractor industries, had reduced the number of jobless to less than a million in the last few month and there was a good chance that the US wouldn't have any jobless come summer. And it was that way everywhere on Earth. The Germans called it the 'Zweite Wirtschaftswunder', the 'Second Economic Wonder'.

It was a little bit ironic that the entire world now fought a war against those who made that possible. Wolf knew a few of his man who would like to thank the Doranians for their new jobs, before shooting them.

"Carver! Get that turret done already!"

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"You're insane you know that, Wolfman?"

James 'Wolfman' O'Conner grinned at his colleagues.

"Hey, it works," he answered," doesn't it?"

In the screen in front of him was the image from a CAD program, showing the outlines of a starship the BAE team had been ordered to design by the British Admiralty. They had wanted a ship with the ability to carry fighters, while packing a good amount of punch to act as Assault Carrier.

"I have to give you that," Mark Williams answered." Any weaponry you want it to have?"

"How about a GOD or two? And some heavy turrets. Plasma, laser and railguns."

His colleagues snorted.

"That is the bloody _Galactica_, Wolfman," Williams said.

"The one from last years miniseries to boot."

Williams rolled his eyes.

"Thank you, Miles..."

O'Conner just continued to grin.

"She's perfect for the job. The right design for fast launch of her fighters, fast landings and rearming with the large bays and the space to carry an armament that is perfect for fast assaults. Not to mention that the fighters bays are mostly independent from the rest of the superstructure."

Williams and the rest of the team nodded.

"We wanted an innovative idea. I guess that would be innovative."


	51. Chapter 51

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 50

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Tenchi once again stood in the back of _Dark_ _Knights_ Command Center, looking directly at a large holographic display that showed all information he needed. Lady Seto, her advisors, Battle Leader Hak'ey and General G'Kot were also standing around the display, observing Tenchi. G'Kot had desired to see how the Earth fleet would fight and told about that during the planning session for 'Operation Pearl Harbor', as they had aptly called it.

Three smaller holograms in the periphery of the large main hologram showed the data from three Beholders in the three systems that had been chosen for the diversion attacks with Narn fleets. Those systems had been chosen because the number of ships in those systems was low and because of that the Doranians would be forced to draw ships from other systems to strengthen the defense of the attacked systems.

G'Kot was wearing an evil smile for everyone to see, while Hak'ey and Seto wore expressionless masks. Tenchi's face on the other side was showing ahis determination to make the operation going according to the plan.

At this moment, the fleet was keeping in jumpspace directly next to the impression Kotoks gravitation was creating in jumpspace, only the laser TacNet was shooting communication between the ships of 1st Expeditionary Fleet.

"Let's do this," Tenchi finally said." Status of the fleet?"

"Every ship signal ready."

Tenchi nodded.

"Order to all ships. Weapons and shields ready. Release Starfuries and prepare for return into normal space."

"All ships signal orders received."

Again Tenchi nodded and a small hologram showed how the Starfuries began to form up their formations in front of the fleet. He glanced back to the display that showed the data of the Beholder in the Kotok system and the space around the planet of Kotok. The red objects in the display were the Doranian ships currently in system, while six blue cloud were the representations of space where the jump points of the fleet would form.

"Jump on my signal," Tenchi said and concentrated on the display, waiting for the Doranian fleet to pass through the blue coulds.

"Executer jump," he ordered as the symbols of the Doranian Dreadnoughts passed through the coulds.

Six jump point generators, tore into the barrier between normal space and hump space, creating pin point holes in the barrier before widening them to full fledged jump points. In normal space the forming jump points diffused the quantum matrix of space for a short time, enough to heavily damage and destroy six of ten Doranian Dreadnoughts, while damaging the other four together with half of the Doranian Cruisers.

Starfuries were the first to leave the jump points, making best pace towards the Doranian orbitals, closely followed by the GDI ships.

"Commerce Jamming," was Tenchi's next order and the entire system disappeared behind a thick curtain of heavy electromagnetic white noise.

Tenchi looked at this display and noted with a slight smile that the fleet was dealing with the remaining Doranian Cruisers, before taking out the ships damaged by the jump points. Meanwhile the Starfuries were diving towards the Doranian orbitals, straving the few defense satellites and destroying several of them, like they had done over Rustoner, several month before.

"If all battles would be so easy," Tenchi said with a sigh." Take the shields of those orbitals down and get their shield emitters."

On Tenchi's order the weapons of the fleet concentrated on the orbitals quickly striping the them of their shields, allowing the Starfuries to attack their shield emitters.

"Recall the 'furies and deliver the packages to the orbitals."

Special missiles detached from the wings of several Thunderbolts, as they made best speed back towards their mother ships. The missiles came close rand closer to the orbitals before detonating in deadly showers of neutron radiation. They didn't destroy the orbitals, but rather killed any life aboard.

Tenchi ignored the stares of Seto, her advisors and Hakey at the fact that, while the missiles blew up in a spectacular display, they hadn't destroyed the orbitals.

"Signal to the fleet to plant our surprises. Tactical, tie in with _Admiral_ _Lobov_ and _Fearless_ for synchronizing the orbital bombardment according to the pre-planned pattern."

While the Vorlock, one Vigilante and one Lupo began to use their Particle Cannons and spinal lasers to destroy all and any ground installations of the Doranians in surgical pin point strikes and with minimal losses of civilian lives, the rest of the fleet moved to plant mines and Ferron defense satellites all around the planet.

Several teams of explosive experts flew shuttles towards the orbitals, planting Narn high yield nukes to the surface and setting them up with the right sensors.

"Bombardment pattern finished, fleet signals that all mines are planted and that the orbitals are prepared."

Tenchi nodded and looked on the small watch in the upper corner of the hologram.

"Half an hour," he noted dryly." All ships gather for jump back into jump space."

Than he showed an evil grin.

"I want to see our surprises to blow up in the faces of the Doranians."

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"So they are actually trying," Admiral Dubinin noted dryly as he looked at the large holographic display in the center of the large Command Center of Shabazza.

The display was currently showing a number of slipstream wakes coming through the Corian Expanse from Narn space towards Earth. The Eye of the Beholder Network was once again showing its worth. With the size of the Expanse around them and the network, it was possible to get a good amount of early warning for enemy attacks. However it worked only for certain races, where the frequency the slipstream worked on was known, like the Doranians and the own drive.

"It would seem that way, sir," Seiler said." The Nomads just entered slipstream to relocate to Epsilon Eridani."

Dubinin nodded. One civilian problem less to deal with. Now only military ships remained in orbit. Than he grinned slightly. Now it was just Home Guard, six GODs, 45 Ferron Planetary Defense Network Satellites, twenty Ghostrider Pods and nineteen Solar Trees.

"Do we have a estimation about fleet strength?" he asked.

"No, sir," Seiler answered." They are keeping formation and as such the slipstream wakes are interacting and prevent an estimation of their strength. And we still go through the data from the Eyes in Narn territory."

"ETA?"

"About ten minutes."

Dubinin nodded again.

"Prepare everything for wide band jamming and electronic warfare."

Little did Dubinin know that he and the raid on Kotok would make the galaxy enter a new age of interstellar warfare with the introduction of jamming from Earth into space.

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Jeffrey Stiles grinned as he looked down at the dockyards of Liverpool.

There she was in all he red and rather ugly glory. But she still was something many prospectors and miner of Great Britain wanted to be crew members of. But why would anyone blame them for this. In a way it was a dream, a funny dream, but a dream nonetheless.

He snorted as the helicopter passed the port side of the large construction that lay in down on the ground. She would be the first privately owned ship in space, even if she didn't have a slipstream drive, but as a mining vessel, she would just go to the belt or out into the outer system to look for promising place to begin mining. And they would launch it next month.

Than he laughed as the large logo of the Jupiter Mining Company came into view, wondering how much they had payed BBC for using that name, combined with the name of the ugly red beauty below, the _Red_ _Dwarf_.

"What next," he wondered out loud." Will someone build a TRADIS?"

In Geneva a redheaded scientist sneezed.

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"If you have saved another Shin'bi," Minako of the Yokokaze clan asked and gave Petersen and von Bismark a short glare," why didn't you bring him or her with you?"

Petersen and Bismark winced. They were currently sitting in one of the briefing rooms of Fukumishisan, the two humans, Haruka and the other rescued Shin'bi on one side of a long table, with the commanders of the station on the other.

"He didn't want to return home in his current state," Petersen finally answered after breathing in deep." Another reason is a life debt he is owing to one of the United States SEALs."

Rei of the Hinoke clan, the resident telephat of the station narrowed her eyes slightly as she looked at Petersen.

"What do you mean with his 'current state'."

"Doranians," Von Bismark spat out as if that would explain everything." He ended up in the hands of a sadistic 'owner', who saw him as personal guinea pig for several bionic experiments. Like removing most of his inner organs and tying him into the life support system of an armored suit. Or using a primitive AI to override his control over his body."

The Shin'bi, even those who knew about it, looked horrified, while the crew members of the station stared at Bismark.

"He ended up being some sort of organic battle robot for that Doranian," Petersen continued." Master Chief O'Neill managed to subdue him during an operation on Rustoner. He was brought back to the operation base where they managed to deactivate the AI. Professor Habuki offered him to repair the damage don to him, including cloned organs, but he refused, saying that he would not take the offer until his vengeance is complete and his life debt payed off."

There was a silence in the room and after some moments Rei nodded into Minako's direction.

"I see... Could you at least tell us his name and clan? That way we can inform his clan about his werabouts."

"Sogunryuu of the Yokokaze clan," Petersen answered and Minako all but froze up completely.

"I see..." she finally said and cold hatred burned in Minako's eyes.

Bismark who had learned quite a lot about Shin'bi body language, knew that this hated wasn't directed at him, Petersen or any other in the room. But rather against the Doranians.

"I take it that you know him," he asked after a moment.

"He is my brother."

"Ach du Scheisse..." was Petersens reply.

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Dubinin smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.

"Status?"

"T minus 50 seconds to projected slipstream event."

He nodded and turned towards the holographic display that hung behind him. The entire Home Guard, as well as the defense satellites had been drawn together to fight against the Doranian fleet, that was projected to leave slipstream in a red clouded area of space halfway between lunar orbit and Earth.

He looked trough the hologram and at Ryoko, who was currently in the command center to observe and get into the fray should the Doranians bring more ships that Home Guard could handle.

Of cause Dubinin and the rest of the Command Center had noted her new state of dress, namely that of a female 'golden age of piracy' outfit that seemed to be straight from those cheesy sixties and seventies pirate movies, with a Stars and Stripes bandanna around her neck. And that there was Ryo-Ohki who wore the same around her neck.

No one had asked, since just about everyone knew about her 'Letter of Marque and Reprisal', that made her the first US supported Privateer of the 21st century. Scufflebutt said that she was currently looking for a crew, that Ryan would give her a contact officer who used to be with the CIA and some sort of special permit that were more than the 'simple' 'Letter of Marque and Reprisal'.

"T minus 30 seconds."

Dubinin licked his lips and his glance went once again to the status display inside the hologram. He chuckled a little. The display itself was programmed by a human software company, which just happened to be Relic Entertainment, and as such, the display looked very much like the tactical display of Relics latest game 'Homeworld 2'. The game also happened to be used in several academies for training purposes, as far as he knew, or at least a modification of the game.

He looked at the icons of the seven Taskforces. Task Force 1 was consisting only of the Ancient Battleships. Task Forces 2 through 5 were one Pegasus and two Monsoon gunboats each, while Task Force 6 were the Vigilante and two Lupos. Task Force 7 finally were the Monsoon Bombers and four AWACS.

"10... 9... 8... Slipstream event!"

Dubinin raised an eyebrow. They were about eight seconds early, but still within the interpolated area of appearance.

Icons for Doranian ships began to appear on the display as the Beholders in trans-lunar orbit measured the fleet and the numbers began to climb, stopping at fifty Dreadnoughts, three hundred Cruisers and thirty Transports.

Dubinin straightened as the battle began with its pre-planned choreography. Part of the main objective was to take out the Transports ASAP, to prevent another LA, Sao Paolo or Pretoria. He had to suppress a slight chuckle as glowing white lines appeared between the six GODs and six of the Transports for a moment, before the virtual Transports blew up in a small virtual fireball.

Twenty small icons in trans-lunar orbit blinked up and smaller icons began to streak towards the Doranian fleet, indicating that the Ghostrider Pods had just launched their KKVs. They were sorely targeted on the Dreadnoughts, that meant that two KKVs would hit one Dreadnought in about one minute.

The battle hadn't even begun, nor had the Doranians moved as the next six Transports were blown up by the GODs.

Dubinin shook his head. The Doranians hadn't reacted as he thought they would, as in they were just now reacting, as the third GOD salvo took out another six Transports.

Meanwhile, Home Guard was moving to intercept the Doranian fleet. Moving in a wall shaped formation, TF 1 accelerated to thrust directly into the center of the Doranian fleet and would hit the loose Doranians formation like a sledge hammer, concentrating to reduce the Dreadnoughts shield strength for the KKVs.

TF 2 through 5 flanked the Doranians from left, right, above and below, while TF 6 was coming from behind. To make it even more interesting TF 7 would make bombing runs straight through the fleet, the Bombers having each loaded about five thousand tons of ordinaince. Nukes raging from 10kt to 500kt as well as several American MOABs, but mostly nukes, each fitted with a small booster stage to get them into the right direction.

GDI had learned from the nearly defeat several month ago.

The last GOD salvo destroyed the remaining transports and to Dubinin it looked like the Doranians were loosing some of their will to fight.

"Notify Nathan to activate the Aagenfelt Barrier System."

Dubinin grinned. The Aagenfelt Barrier System was a very interesting piece of technology. It suppressed the use of the slipstream drive and could force ships out of slipstream if they moved into the sphere of influence of the Barrier. Washuu had been very interested in that system as even she hadn't been able to develop something similar, yet anyway. Even Nathan had to confess that it was a system that was developed very shortly before the war that wiped out the Ancients and that he hadn't been able to finish it before the fall of Sol.

"Response from Nathan, Aagenfelt Barrier is online."

Dubinin nodded.

"Lets herd the cat to the Defense Satellites."


	52. Chapter 52

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 51

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Pluto looked at the display of the Time Gate with dread. She had just gotten the news that Usagi was now definitively pregnant. Even Washuu had confirmed it. So Pluto's hopes that the pink pest never came into existence where challenged.

The feeling of dread became stronger as the Time Gate began to show a scene that had a possibility of 37 percent. A very high possibility, even Crystal Tokyo had only a possibility of about 30 percent at best.

Pluto could see a strange red colored blurring space, with a graceful light gray colored ship hovering in the center of the image, surrounded by a number of other ships, some where GDI, others Ferron or Dilgar. The Gate zoomed towards the long hull of the ship in the center, showing her the crest of the GDI, accompanied by a pair of other crests, one looking eerily like that of the United Federation of Planets, a registry number, BC-76, and the name _ICS_ _Serenity_.

The image changed, showing the inside of a ship, more exactly the command center. A sign on a bulkhead proclaimed that it was the bridge of Serenity. At the moment it showed the frontal part of the command center and a holografic image of several Vree saucers and Doranian transports.

"Course vector 121/112 at 10.5 PSL and neg 5 grav acel," the voice of one technician said." One saucer is leaking light amounts of antimatter."

A man, alien looking stepped into the viewpoint of the Gate. Pluto identified his species as being Wau, but there were several things off on him, like the shorter muzzle and a less dense fur. It could well be that he was a hybrid of some kind. He was clothed in a service uniform that was close to that of the US Navy, but light green in color. On his shoulders he had the three stripes of a Commander.

"Looks like they are gunning for the Debris field, ma'am," he said, his English having a Japanese AND a German accent at the same time.

There was a chuckle off screen, coming from a woman and Pluto felt her dread coming out more. It was just like the chuckle she had heard from 'Dark Lady' during the Wiseman Crisis.

"The proud Vree," the woman said with the chuckle," reduced to little more than scavengers."

The woman stepped into view and Plutos mouth nearly met the floor. It was 'Dark Lady', the same drop dead gorgeous woman Chibi-Usa had become while under Wisemans power. This one however was dressed in the same Service Uniform as the Commander, with the four stripes and the eagle of a Captain on her uniform.

"Frack me," Pluto muttered and continued to watch.

"Not really surprising," the Commander noted," They lost the Trade War and their trade routes went to the Hansa for the most part. I doubt they have much more left than the scavenging business."

"That and helping the 'Free Doranians' it seems," 'Chibi-Usa' said.

"Both don't like us..."

Usa nodded.

"We are dropping by and cause some trouble," she said." Orders to the Task Force. _Serenity_ is dropping to normal space, they are to keep their jump drives ready to drop by."

"Aye, ma'am."

For a moment the view screen of Serenity showed the funnel of a jump point before showing deep space.

"Guns, give them a warning shot and prepare fire solutions on that Doranian Dreadnought."

"Aye, ma'am."

The screen briefly showed four beams of energy flashing into existence.

"The freighters are increasing power to their drives, warships are powering up their weapons."

Usa nodded into another direction.

"Outgoing transmission ready."

She breathed in deep.

"This is Captain Usagi Chiba, Interstellar Commonwealth Ship _Serenity_, commander of Patrol Task Force 10.5. To unidentified fleet. You are trespassing the Doranian Containment Zone without authorization. Stand down all systems safe for life support and prepare to be boarded."

"Energy peak," the voice of the sensory technician said as the Dreadnought and the Vree battle saucers fired, causing the ship to shake.

Usa made a gesture and while more jump points opened, she continued to speak without betraying a hint of emotion.

"I repeat, stand down all systems safe for life support and prepare to be boarded."

Again the opposing ships fired and Usa nodded.

"Get that Dreadnought out of my sight."

The image of the Time Gate stopped and Pluto swallowed. Sure, this version of 'Chibi-Usa' was a little better than the other, but not by much...

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Good work people," Tenchi said with a slight smile." Through the mine coverage could have been a little looser at Quadrant Seven."

Most of the commanders of the other ships smiled a little, while Lady Seto glared at Tenchi.

"Why did you leave Kotok," she asked before Tenchi could say more.

Tenchi's eyes narrowed for a moment as he looked at Seto.

"Because we wouldn't have been able to hold the planet. Besides all objectives of the operation were fulfilled and there was no need to hang behind further."

Battle Leader Hak'ey raised an eyebrow. While he had, sadly, worked with Jha'dur, and knew some 'unusual tactics', he knew pretty well that something like the 'Operation Postal', as the humans had called it, hadn't happened before.

"You could have held Kotok," he noted." The Narn would have been able to supply the fleet to hold Kotok."

Tenchi smiled wryly.

"But at what cost?" he asked." By supplying a fleet capable of holding Kotok, the Narn would have had drawn ships from fleets all along the front line. The attacks from the Doranians would have destroyed ships, which would have lead to more ships drawn from the front line."

He stopped for a moment. He had talked long and intensely with General G'Kot and the leaders of the Narn Regime and hadn't been all that surprised to know that the Narn had used similar tactics during the Centauri Occupations and knew what Tenchi meant to do, rather than most of the rest of the galaxy.

"Ba holding Kotok," he continued," we would have exposed the front lines. Besides taking and holding Kotok was never an objective of 'Operation Postal'."

Hirata narrowed his eyes. He was known as brilliant tactician, but he hadn't been able to tell the objectives of this 'Operation' during the battle.

"And what would those objectives be?"

Tenchi smiled a little. He knew that he shouldn't tell the Jurians, it may come back to haunt Earth should it ever come to a war between Earth and Jurai, but he was only human and wanted to see the face of his 'dear family' about this one. Especially since it was a breach of the unwritten 'Rules of Engagement' in the galaxy.

"There were three objectives," he explained and with a short nod, _Dark_ _Knight_ activated a hologram.

The hologram appeared above the table, showing two arrows pointing at a pair of star close to Kotok, but far enough away for long response times.

"The First Objective was to draw Doranian forces away from Kotok, by attacking these two systems. This was obtained by attacking them with two Narn fleets that were large enough to bind the fleets without exposing the front lines at other places."

He nodded towards G'Kot.

"That Objective was a full success. We were able to attack Kotok and obtain the other two objectives.

"Objective Two was causing a major problem with logistics support of the Doranian Front lines. Without the logistics that were sorely based around Kotok, the Doranian support is going to be hindered, not to mention the loss of supplies on and around Kotok. _Dark_ _Knight_ estimates the loss of about five hundred million tons of supplies for about one hundred Jurian Tera-Credits."

For a moment Tenchi made an estimation how many money that would be on Earth. If one Jurian Credit was roughly one dollar and a Tera-Credit about a trillion Jurian Credits. Yes that was much money.

He ignored the gasps of the Jurians and Hak'ey and continued.

"The Third Objective, directly coupled to the Second Directive was to damage the Doranian morals. And the loss of the supplies, combined with the fact that it will get harder to get supplies and the continued lossed to the minefields at Kotok, will reduce the Doranians morals. And an enemy that has low morals will fight less effective than one with high morals."

He smirked.

"In fact, the damage to the Doranian moral will be enough to get to the next stage of the battle to get the Doranians out of Narn space. Mostly because it will allow us to get the initiative and bind the Doranians to the systems they have now, buying us time for the real counter attack."

Still ignoring the Jurians he looked towards G'Kot.

"Have you gotten word of Fleet Command."

The Narn General nodded. To Tenchi, the man had much of the stereotypical large russian general and he wouldn't have been surprised to head a 'Da' from him.

"Yes," G'Kot nodded," They are very interested in this. They are currently drawing together two Task Forces of the ships we would need."

Than G'Kot grinned evilly.

"And now for that force multiplier you talked about."

Tenchi chuckled a little.

"The ground crews are preparing two squadrons of Thunderbolts for Wild Weasel operations and I have requested a pair of AWACS Monsoons from Earth. That would be two squadrons of Thunderbolts and one Monsoon for each Task Force. I'd say that both Task Forces are going to be twice as strong as they would be normally."

The human commanders grinned even of the commander of _HMS_ _Fearless_ sighed at loosing all his Thunderbolts to the two Narn Task Forces.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"This is CNN."

Azusa couldn't help but chuckle a little at the deep English speaking voice coming from the speaker fields of the holographic screen in front of him. It was fun to watch these Earth news, especially now that they were broadcasting them outside of their little planet.

Of course Azusa took all news from CNN Galactic or BBC Stellar with a ton of salt, like he took any news from any news network in the galaxy, since all of them were heavily influenced by their governments and very useful tools of propaganda. He did it himself too after all.

Through the Earth approach of presenting the news was very different to the things he was used to.

For a moment he rolled his eyes. It wasn't just the news that had 'hit' the galaxy, but also two channels that showed Earth movies and series. And of course they were adding to the large number of daily soaps and the like. Misaki for example had begun to watch this one soap... What was it called?

Oh yes... Dallas...

"This is CNN Live Today. Its March 1st 2004. I'm Ellyn Togan."

Azusa leaned back as the woman began to tell him news from Earth and relaxed, taking a sip of sake. However, he did a spit take rather quickly as the off showed the image of a Doranian Cruiser being holed by a rather powerful particle beam.

"... has attacked an hour ago and was being engaged by Home Guard and the Global Defense Network. GDI Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, has released the first casualty reports, stating that twenty five sailors and ten fighter pilots lost their lives during the engagement, with three hundred being injured to various degrees.

"The US Lupo _USS Farragut_, the Indian Pegasus _INS Tabar_ and the Australian Vigilante _HMAS Anzak_, have been heavily damaged and require extensive repairs at one of the Shipyards at L5."

Azusa blinked a few times before adding three times the casualties in his mind. He knew that most news networks tended to reduces any losses by these numbers. Likewise he was pretty sure that more ships had been damaged.

"The Doranian Invasion fleet has been the third fleet to fail to Earth's defenses.

"GDI informed us that while Home Guard has played a great part of the defense, the Global Defense Network took the most part of the battle, destroying two thirds of the Doranian ships. GDI further informed that they are going to increase the production of G.O.D. Satellites as well as purchasing another hundred P.D.N. Satellites from a Ferron Defense Contractor, Molusevel Gravitic Industries."

For a moment Azusa was deep in thought. He didn't remember any Ferrons on the head. Nor did he remember any race that would trade with Earth this fast. He was very sure that the Vree were steering free from Earth at the moment, something about 'old grunges' his spies had informed him.

"In other news, the Peoples Republic of China, one of the tree Chinese nations has spoken to the United Nations, requesting a meeting of the security council regarding the continued occupation of North Korea by South Korean forces. However the meeting won't be held before May 2006."

Azusa shook his head for a moment, having followed the entire thing about the localized war between the two Korean nations. He was surprised that that meeting of the 'UN Security Council' would be held so soon.


	53. Chapter 53

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 52

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Seran Chaktor, captain of the _Bright_ _Horizon_, an independent Ferron 50MT freighter, leaned back in his seat and put his legs on the console in front of him, looking out of the ship through the large screens in the frontal part of the bridge, located deep inside the armored engineering and crew section.

The massive Ambur class freighter, with about one and a half kilometers length about half the size of a Tillmann super dreadnought, was one of the most massive freighter craft build by the Ferrons. There weren't many of them being operated at all in the Vega System, and the _Bright_ _Horizon_ was one of the few independently operated Ambur freighters.

What made his ship mostly unique at this moment was that, while the Jump Generator was standard for a Ambur, Bright Horizon was the first to be equipped with a Quantum 2 Slipstream drive and a Quantum 2 shielding generator that would normally be found on a dreadnought sized battleship. He had gotten both as part of the payment he had gotten to ferry relief goods to New Omelos.

And it was what brought him, his ship and crew out here. The slipstream drive and the ability to fly wherever he wanted to go without getting lost in Jump Space, as well as the temptation of finding new markets and explore the galaxy was the reason why _Bright_ _Horizon_ was now deep within the Zeltorin Nebula, a Null Slipstream Zone that expended several light days, not far away from his destination.

He looked out at the colorful surroundings of the nebula and the swirls of ionized and otherwise energized gas as the massive freighter moved through it. Sure, he could have flown around the nebula, but from what he knew, no one flew around the Zeltorin Nebula, as it's effects on Slipstream extended vastly around the Null Slipstream Zone and it would take longer to get around the nebula. He could have used Jump Space, but that would have robbed him and his crew the great panorama.

As he looked out through the monitors, he had to chuckle, thinking of the last few days. Especially when the _Horizon_ had dropped out of Slipstream at Anzatur, a trade world about two thousand light years away from Vega. The _Horizon_ had been the largest ship that was going to the planet and many, especially Galaxy Police had thought that his ship was a warship or pirate ship.

He snorted. It was hard to believe that the largest ships in the galaxy were freighters of not more than maybe five MegaTons. Another thing was that most freighters he did see however where either from a race called the Vree, with two MegaTons at max, or Galaxy Transporter ships. And it seemed that Galaxy Transporters were a subdivision of Galaxy Police. Or was it the other way around?

Anyway, Galaxy Police had made pretty much a ruckus, going on about regulations and trying to bully him away or into a contract with Galaxy Transporters. And the Vree hadn't been much better.

However, he had pretty much lucked out. He had managed to secure a contract with a large robotics company, Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. As far as he knew they were a large number of parts for their new "Genuine People Personalities" series of androids. It was about 49 MegaTons they had to get to their main production facility on Siruis Tau IV.

Even if the manager Seran had brokered the deal with, had been a little inept, he had seen that the use of one single freighter was costing less than getting ten Galaxy Transporters freighters to do it. But even than Seran had been able to cheat the manager a little, which had gotten him played half in advance, as well as essentially getting payed three times of what he would get payed normally.

The advance pay had also allowed him to pay a Galaxy Police fee. Seran believed that they were trying to get him to get out of business, before he even had started.

He snorted. Other people had tried that and failed.

"Unknown contact," his navigator suddenly said." Distance one tenth light second."

Seran sat up.

"Where does it come from?" he asked.

"It's coming from our rear. Sensor echoes are blurred by the effects of the nebula."

Seran narrowed his eyes. Something wasn't quite right.

"Marek, challenge them for their ID," he ordered his radio operator, who nodded in response.

"This is the Ferron freighter Bright Horizon," Marek said into the microphone." To unknown vessel, respond please identify yourself."

The response from the unidentified ship was the response, Seran had dreaded.

"Energy buildup."

"Shields," Seran ordered just as several high energy bolts slammed into his ship and into the armor over the reactor section, shaking the entire rear section of the ship.

"Rear Port Armor damaged, integrity loss of 60 percent, shields up. They haven't hit the gravity wave emmiters."

Seran pulled himself from the ground and all but growled in a low tone.

"How long until we can jump into Jump Space?" he asked.

"Three minutes."

Seran cursed that a Russian sailor would have blushed. Another hit slammed into the shields and shook it again, through much less this time.

"Shields down to 95 percent. We are gonna make it those three minutes. I think we should fire back?"

Seran grinned. He was glad that he had enough foresight to get _Bright_ _Horizon_ modified after his first Pirate Raid while en route to Rustoner. Back at Vega most pirates were only after the freight and sometimes ships, and let the crew go, so they had been able to survive.

The modifications had been done by a friend of the family, who ran a private slip at a larger drydock. Most of the money of Bright Horizon Freight as well as his private money had gone into the modifications. The hull over the engineering and crew section had been armored up with five meters of Aegis X armor, while he had added as much weapons to his ship as the 21st Amend of the Ferron Constitution allowed.

A dual Molusevel MI 22 Heavy Gravitic Cannon turret, the same as it was used on the new Hyperions, three Zernik PP 8 Pulse Plasma Motar turrets and eight Molusevel MG 14 Pulse Laser Arrays had been added in concealed compartments all over the engineering and crew hull, patterned in a way that allowed full coverage, especially towards the rear vector as most pirate ships came from there.

"Since they want all we got, lets give it to them."

His navigator, who also acted as gunner, grinned as his fingers danced over his console.

Large armored panels opened up along the ventral and dorsal hulls and the turrets of large caliber energy weapons moved to the surface. As two more salvos from the pirates slammed into the shields they swung around to face the cruiser sized pirate ship.

Minor corrections were made by the fire control software as it aligned the weapons and a light went up on the navigators console.

"Cutting energy to the drive to 50 percent."

The energy that was cut from the massive and powerful gravitic drives of the large freighter was rerouted to the power hungry weapons. As the drive needed very much energy, cutting half of its energy was enough to feed the weapons. It had the nice side effect of the pirates thinking they had hit the drive.

The navigator grinned and the screen changed to show the pirate ship, than he pressed his finger down on the fire button.

Being a form believer of the rule that there was no overkill, he had programmed the weapons to go into a rapid fire sequence that would last ten seconds.

The weapons opened fire and cycled their shots as fast as they could. The massive Gravitic Cannons fired once per second, while the Pulse Plasma Mortars and Pulse Laser Arrays fired several times per second.

The pirate was very surprised that his pray actually fired back. And did so with an arsenal that could be considered being the layout of a warship. And combined with the heavy shield of the freighter, he considered that he wasn't payed enough for this job by his unknown client.

The pirates rather low powered shield for a ship his size were brought down in little less than nine seconds, as the entire ship was mostly designed to hit fast against a target that didn't shoot back. Than the dual gravitic cannon did the rest, as two gravity stress bands or more than a thousand times Earth gravity went straight through the ship from bow to stern, turning the ship into two long and very dense strands of matter.

"Well..." Seran noted." I think we can forget the jump for now. Get back to full speed and get me a full damage report."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Alina was relieved that Senkal was rather busy at the moment. He was very busy to work on new strategies and he had proven that they worked, when he had disrupted an unknown ship with his new tactics that had prayed on Doranian Transports for weeks.

Alina knew that the tactics he used were straight from the books, human books on naval warfare. Old style anti submarine warfare. She knew quite a little about it from her uncle and was able recognize it.

Other tactics involved spying on the enemy from a distance. Another thing he had from the books. But she knew that he had a few problems with his superiors, now that at least that tactic had proven to be a failure when a large fleet had literally played the Doranians to withdraw ships from the Narn front to defend a system against an attack that never came.

For a moment she closed her eyes. She had used the time and tried to come up with a way to get into contact with Earth. And she had watched CNN while Senkal wasn't there, carefully memorizing the frequency it was broadcast on rather than save it on the receiver, so that Senkal would find it.

It had been a short piece of info about old short wave number radio that had been used for a long time by many Earth intelligence agencies that had helped her find a way.

Following her gut she had used the pieces she had around here, stuff that was considered unimportant. A few informations about slipstream radio and transceivers. Stuff like that. She had found something that was similar to short wave radio, using the lower bands of slipstream. Just about any transceiver could send and receive it and even with little energy used to transmit, the range was long. But the frequency was unable to transmit digital data and allowed only analog transmissions. So language was able to be transmitted.

Finding a transceiver had been relatively easy. Since she was able to get around in the ship, even if the Doranians didn't like to see a slave outside the quarters, she had sneaked into a locker room, stealing a personal slipstream transceiver. Than it had been easy to set the transceiver to the right frequency.

The next part had been more complicated. Putting together something that resembled a report, but written in Russian, she had been able to do that even while Senkal was there to see her write. To him it had been some sort of ritual and when he had asked her what she did, she had answered that she wrote a diary. In a sense she was.

To find a code was even more complicated. Since she had been part of the KGB, even if she had been 'just' an analyst. But as analyst, she knew a few old codes. She had chosen a code that was pretty standard on Earth by just about any nation.

So she had encoded the report and began to record herself speaking the English letters in groups of three.

Now she had ended recording herself. She closed her eyes and pressed the transmit button on the transceiver before hiding it in 'her room'. She hoped that the Doranians wouldn't listen to that frequency and that Earth was still curious enough to listen to frequencies that weren't really in use.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"0, 6, 6. 0, 4, 6. 0, 3, 2."

Admiral Macuso's face was showing a little confusion as he listened to the female voice speaking from the speakers of Marc Allen's laptop. He was pretty sure that the voice wasn't really human, with the slight rumbling in it, but he couldn't help but notice a very slight Russian accent in the English of the voice.

He looked at Marc Allen, a TNI code specialist, who was a man who wouldn't be out of place in Redmond or Seattle, idly noting that the mousy man didn't really make a good figure in that cheap suit. But Macuso knew that the man was a very good man in his area of expertise, having worked with NSA until the formation of the Terran Naval Intelligence as subordinate intelligence agency of GDI about three weeks ago.

All Macuso knew was that it had to do with a possible agent among the Doranian and that he, or rather Wolfpack Fleet was able to get closer to this agent to get informations.

"We have caught this voice message with several of the Beholder satellites," Allen said, not showing any discomfort while sitting in Macuso's office at GDI headquarters." It was transmitted with a low power transceiver on a not used short wave slipstream band."

Allen turned around the laptop, stopping the voice message and pulled up a document that contained the lines of numbers he had heard on the message.

"This is the complete message."

Macuso frowned as she looked at the screen and the numbers seemed to dance in front of his eyes for a moment.

"All I'm seeing is numbers," he said and looked at Allen, a slight sense of annoyance.

Allen nodded.

"It was all we saw also, and tried to get it through many of our decoder programs. The all turned up nothing. At least until I noticed a very similar pattern in the numbers."

He made a few changes in the program and the numbers separated into groups of three, most, if not all of these groups starting with a zero.

"Its a very simple code and one of the most basic of the information age. A simple ASCII code."

Another few changes in the program and Macuso looked at the real text of the message.

"Its Russian," he noted.

"It is," Allen said." But we have already translated it."

With that he handed Macuso a manila folder with the translated message. Macuso opened the folder and began to read, frowning as he did. Than he placed the folder on his desk.

"Can we be sure that this message is genuine?"

"Not hundred percent, but the message contains a few things that might confirm that the sender is human. And Russian. If we take the style the message is written in, we could even say the the person is or was a member of the KGB."

"A member of the KGB being a slave of a Doranian?"

Allen nodded.

"It is possible. We know that the Vree have abducted a good number of people and sold them as slaves later on. Mr. Von Bismark is a good example for that. So why not them getting a KGB member by chance?"

"Any idea who it might be? And from what time he or she came?"

"We're pretty sure that its the woman that spoke the message. And surprisingly the KGB was very supportive with giving us the names of any female members that have simply disappeared. We have three possible hits, through only one of them is likely to be our messanger."

Macuso leaned back and looked at the data specialist. He had to say that the man was holding himself very good.

"How can you be so sure?"

Allen chuckled slightly.

"Mostly because of the codename she chose, 'Topas'. As you might remember Reiner Rupp who was an Eastern German agent codenamed Topas in NATO until he was uncovered in 1993. The others disappeared before that."

"And what is the name of our 'Topas'?"

"Alina Ramius."

Macuso's blood seemed to freeze at this moment.

"Shit," was his only response.


	54. Chapter 54

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 53 (Party written by Psychosama)

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Ryoko was a little jumpy as she entered the Oval Office for the second time in so many months. Not nearly as nervous as she had been the first time, but still, even for someone like Ryoko, meeting the President of your country could cause a bit of anxiety.

It made her chuckle a bit. This normal human, this elected official made her jump more than any noble or king of Jurai with all their age, strength, and near absolute political power ever could. The reason was that he was **her **leader. This gave him an undeniable influence on her life, and surprisingly enough, she did not resent it at all. President Ryan was a good man. He actually reminded her of her Tenchi a bit. They both held the same quiet dignity and strength, and while Tenchi was still cuter, Jack Ryan was a man she could happily follow and one that she was proud to call friend.

President Ryan smiled slightly as Ryoko entered the room. "Hello, Ryoko. Please, take a seat.

"Thanks, Jack." She replied as she sat down. "So, why did you need to see me?"

"Two reasons, actually," he replied. "First, I'd like to thank you for your performance in the last battle. Without you and Ryuu-oh-ki, our losses would probably have been far more severe."

Ryoko nodded. "My planet, my country, my responsibility as a Privateer."

Jack smiled. "Glad you see it that way, because when you ran out last time you were here, you did so before I was able to make a second offer to you."

Ryoko blanched. "Oh, I'm sorry about that..."

The President shrugged. "No worries. You were anxious and I can accept that."

"So..." Ryoko began, "What's the offer?"

Jack pushed a form to her. "Please sign that."

"What is it?" she asked.

"It's a Non-Digression Agreement. It means that you can tell no one of what is about to be said in this room, and if you do, you will be prosecuted."

Ryoko gulped. "Is this necessary?"

"I'm about to divulge a state secret to you, Ryoko. I'm afraid to say its VERY necessary."

She paused for a moment, and then signed. "Alright, Jack. Give me the offer."

Jack pressed his intercom. "Send him in."

Ryoko looked over her shoulder as the door to the oval office opened and a hard looking man with black hair wanted into the room.

"Mr. President..." he greeted.

"Please take a seat, Mr. Fisher."

The man did so without comment.

Ryoko blinked. "Who's he?"

"Someone I want you to talk to once I'm done giving you the offer."

She nodded and gave the president her attention.

"In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a speech defining the corner stones of American ethical belief that define who we are and what we stand for. Those cornerstones are freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear. What he did not articulate is the existence of a fifth freedom: the right to do whatever is necessary to protect and uphold the other four."

Ryoko blinked. "What does this have to do with me?"

"As an agent of the United States government, I am willing to grant you Fifth Freedom privileges. This will allow you the freedom to do what ever you deem necessary to protect and uphold the moral principles of the United States and to protect its people."

Ryoko gulped. "Why me?"

"Ryoko, I know that you're a good woman and with a strong moral center who has seen first hand the horrors the abuse of power can bring. We also need agents in the field who are capable of doing what's necessary to win this war. You know the galaxy, your power is undeniable, and lastly, and please do not take offense to this, due to your state as a privateer and undeserved reputation, they will expect you to act with a certain ruthlessness that would be the perfect cover for your true activities."

"I'm not sure about this," she replied, "I... I appreciate the offer but I don't want to be that person anymore."

"Mr. Fisher, why don't you tell her about you experiences."

He nodded and looked to Ryoko. "He'd not asking you to be that person. The unfortunate fact of the universe is that for people to live their lives free, there will always be the select few who willingly make the preservation of that freedom their personal responsibility. Without hard men willing to do what is necessary, to bend certain ethical principles in order to combat those willing steal, murder, and destroy without concern for others. Really, its not much different from the 'License to Kill' principle that British 00 agents posses."

Ryoko blinked. "Isn't that just a movie?"

Sam grinned. "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he doesn't exist. MI6 actually paid Ian Fleming to write the original Bond novels."

"By the way," Jack cut in with a grin, "I played your game."

Sam laughed. "I told them Ironsides was the perfect voice!"

Ryoko blinked then laughed. "Splinter Cell! You're the guy that the game is based off of?"

"Guilty as charged," he replied.

"I'm still not sure, though," she replied. "I don't want to become a monster again..."

"Don't worry, you won't," Sam cut it, "Some people will tell you that the Fifth Freedom means that all means are acceptable. That you can murder, kidnap, torture, dominate, extort and some such without any moral accountability what so ever. They're wrong. Ethics is what makes us different from them. We are hard people who do a dirty job in the service of others. Don't let anyone ever tell you that the things we do are not wrong, but the simple fact is that we deal in lesser evils. When we act it should only be to prevent greater evils, and only with as much nastiness as is absolutely required. You have to know where to draw the line and you can ever allow yourself to enjoy it. That's what separates us from the monsters."

"You're not going to have to do anything you don't want to," Jack added, "This just gives you a legal shield, within reason, to operate outside the law."

"Alright," Ryoko replied with a mask of conviction, "I'll do it."

"Good," Jack replied. "Remember, Fifth Freedom is a state secret so make sure to limit yourself if anyone can see you do it. Also, as a public figure there be missions too covert in nature for your to be able to do yourself so be assigning Sam and his team to your ship to serve as backup."

Ryoko nodded. "Sounds good to me."

"Great," Jack replied, "Now Sam here is can fill you in on all the details..."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

zap

"... Infineon has build two more fully automated factories in Springfield, USA, and Melbourne, Australia. These factories have been designed to build several key semi-conducting elements used in space ships. This will make the construction of new space ships much easier..."

zap

"... has massively lowered key interest rates, hoping to encourage more new investments in the new technologies available. The Wall Street reacts to this step of the European National Bank with a raising of..."

zap

"... have been presented by the Admiral Jackson, the current head of GDI. The Pallas Class Frighter was designed by a German team of engineers, who won the GDI design contest for a fleet supply vessel and have also designed the Somtaaw class tender. The Victory class Super-Dreadnought is the first battleship of native Earth design however, its design crew isn't what most people would expect. Rather than being designed by a team of engineers of a Defense Contractor, it has been designed over the last month in an Internet forum, The thread that lead to the design of the Victory, has more than a hundred thousand replies over the course of three month..."

zap

"... was the General Electrics/Microsoft M244 'Mjolnir' powered armor introduced to a number of special operations units of the US Army and the US Marine Corps..."

zap

"... was presented by EADS. The Barracuda is the first unmanned combat vehicle designed by a european defense contractor and is the first world wide designed UCAV capable of air and space borne operations..."

zap

"... was launched by the British Jupiter Mining Company. Hundred thousands of fans of the British space sitcom 'Red Dwarf' have been at the Liverpool docks to watch the launch of the first Earth asteroid mining vessel _Red_ _Dwarf_. The _Red_ _Dwarf_ has been build to be a one to one copy of the 'original' from the sitcom..."

zap

"... _Moon_ _44_ is the second asteroid mining ship that was launched by an Earthern corporation to try and make competition to Jupiter Mining. Roland Emmerich the authors and director, as well as his co-authors, of the movie 'Moon 44' has said that it is an honor that one of their works is used to name one of the first mining ships in Earth history..."

zap

"... has begun to introduce the MiG-37 'Viper' into service. Like Russia, several other countries, like India and many eastern European countries have began bid for the 'Viper' and the licenses to build it in their own factories. Also the Eurofighter concern has began to work with Mikojan-Gurewitsch for a European fighter based on the 'Viper'.."

zap

"... by Boeing. The F-37 'Hammerhead' is considered the counterpart of the MiG-37. The US Navy, as well as Air Force and Marine Corps have already ordered four hundred F-37..."

zap

"... Iceland has joined the GDI and ..."

zap

".. began a localized orbital bombardment on suspected sites of Al Quaeda bases and hiding places..."

zap

"... has captures Osama Bin-Laden. He will be placed in front of an international court to face charges..."

zap

"...Lockheed-Martins Skunkworks has presented the final design of the B-6 'Avanger II', a heavy attack bomber..."

zap

"... the end of Operation 'Spring Cleaning', the largest international operation against terroristic cells all over the world, with more than 45 countries taking part. The estimated number of killed or captured terrorists has been set to 95 percent, including Osama Bin-Laden and a number of high ranking members..."

zap

"... grown to 16 nations as of today, May 1st 2004. Additional to having joined the EU, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, have also joined up with GDI..."

zap

"... has finished building the first ten Devastator class Patrol vessels. These ten vessels are going to be introduced into service by Thailand, Malaysia and New Zealand..."

zap


	55. Chapter 55

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 54 (Party written by Cobalt Greywalker over at the Maximum Addventure)

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High Sideryt Catall, democratically elected head of the Nomads, sighed as she looked out of the large window that covered one of the smaller craters of _The_ _Home_. Beneath was the brown marble of New Omelos.

Even if the remnants of the Dilgar had already made their home on the planet, New Omelos seemed to be the destination of a long journey to a new homeworld. Even if it was a world with a thin atmosphere and they would have to share it with another race.

But the atmosphere, even if thin, was breathable and could be compressed to fill the domes that would allow her people to live on the planet.

And the Dilgar... They were in pretty much the same situation as the Nomads, through her people had been better prepared with _The_ _Home_, the result of more than a hundred years of work, prior to the Exodus. Comfortable living space for more than twenty million Nomads and it had been modified and adapted over the millennia of their journey.

She sighed again. She had never thought that she would live to see this happen, as she looked down to the glistering strands that spanned from _The_ _Home_ down to the planets surface and the platforms moving down.

Maybe it had been fate that they had met up with the humans, living in the sole fully habitable planet of the Corian Expanse. They had been the ones that had talked to the Dilgar, who had been grateful for the Nomads help. So grateful that they allowed them to settle down on the planet.

The large factories of _The Home_ had been online and working all the time since they had entered orbit of New Omelos, producing parts and goods for increasing the life standard in the Dilgars life domes. Air filters, water plants, some of the most basic things of life support. Parts to bring their warships back to something that was close to their original stats. Allowing them to fight to defend themselves better again.

She chuckled a little. The Dilgar were already seeing the Nomads as friends, not as the pariahs of space they had been so long.

But that had not been everything. Old plans for planetary settlement had been put into motion. Plans that had been modified and adapted to new salvaged technologies over the duration of the journey.

The first thing they had done was to bring _The_ _Home_ into a geostationary orbit over New Omelos, while scouts had looked for an equatorial area of the planet that was extremely stable, with a ground of stable and hard stone. They had found it and construction ships had brought massive amounts of material down to build the Ground Station.

Massive pillars of extremely hard and strong alloys had been driven into the rocky ground, several hundred meters deep and over an area of several dozen square kilometers. The entire work had needed a month, before the foundations had set and had been able to do what they were designed to do.

_The Home_ had opened ancient air locks and the first Strand had been rolled down to the planet. Helped with gravitic control systems, they had been able to send it straight down to the foundations of the Ground Station. They had needed a whole planetary day to unroll more than 38.000 kilometers of the strand before the beginning had been set and connected to the foundations of the Ground Station.

A single mono molecular strand of one centimeter thick material, that had needed two hundred years to grow properly, had connected _The Home _to the Ground Station. The first of 24 strands that were now the Ladder to the Stars.

She had been surprised by the humans as it seemed that they knew about this form of construction and called it Orbital Lift. The Dilgar however had been greatly surprised about the construction that now allowed to get to the planet and off the planet much easier and cheaper. Not to mention that the single climbers could carry more freight than any transport currently in system.

The Ladder would be modified soon however. _The Home_ would detach from the massive Orbital Station that was currently build and would need another asteroid as anchor. And they would create massive shield tubes around the four climber routes, allowing them to move faster and with less danger of orbital debris and micrometeorites.

She looked down towards the planet and a small zoom window. The zoom window showed the Ground Station, a large area what was now slowly covered.

For a moment, she recalled the old plans for the Ladder. They would continue to build on it, until it was a single massive structure that connected the planet with the Orbital Station with more than 24 strands of mono molecular material.

It would be a greater construction than anything the galaxy had seen.

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Ever since the Nomads had arrived at New Omelos and he had talked with their leader, High Sideryt Catall, Battle Master Len'dar had time to think.

He had been a little surprised that most of the rumors about the Nomads were wrong. They didn't eat their young to keep their number in check, but practiced a strict, but still voluntary form of birth control. They weren't even remotely cannibalistic. Instead they had powerful hydroponics, aquacultures and had managed to breed Spoo in special acoustic insulated chambers.

The Nomads had been send from the heavens, every time Zerberoff passed _The_ _Home_ and the 'Ladder to the Stars' they had build, he thanked Serity and all the Old Gods of the Dilgar pantheon. With the first time the 'Ladder' or 'Orbital Lift' as the humans called it had gone to the planet, the living conditions on the planet were becoming better and better.

He breathed in the fresh air of his personal office aboard the dual space tree Zerberoff. For a moment he wondered if the Jurian treeships looked like this. He certainly had grown to like the way the tree was meking things better for his people. More than two million Dilgar, the entire population that used to live in orbit in habitats welded together from hulls of wrecked ships, had found a new home inside the tree.

The air was fresh, there was enough water and light. The living space borne organism never needing any form of maintenance as the dual tree regenerated any damage. The living conditions in the domes on the planet were also slowly but surely getting better and better.

The Nomads had pulled a small comet into orbit, turning it into usable water with the machinery on their generation ship before dropping it to the surface over the 'Ladder'. Air scrubbers and other systems that had needed replacements had been replaced, filtering smells from the air that had been there for the last decades.

The factories had been repaired and modified. The first new fabrics and goods of daily use were coming out and slowly replacing the old clothes and improvised things.

Len'dar closed his eyes for a moment. He was still wearing his old clothing, the same uniform that he had worn for years, through now it had been cleaned and patched up. He himself had been sitting in a tub of water from Zerberoff for several hours, even when he was clean. He hadn't felt that good in years.

He smiled a little as he thought how much Catall was like him. Even if she was a Nomad, a member of a different race, she had the same drives to lead her people to a better future.

He turned towards the virtual window and watched how _The_ _Home_ slowly passed Zerberoff.

At first he had thought that the Nomads had a government like most races, only to find that they had a form of government he had learned to know as democracy from the humans. Catall had been elected by the Nomads to be their leader. She hadn't been born into that roles, but worked hard for it.

He closed his eyes again as his thoughts came back to the same thing that had occupied them for the last weeks. The reasons why his people had started the War. How the old government had rallied the people, who hadn't anything to say. How they had made laws and how a monster like HER had gotten into power. The corruption of those in power.

The humans had gone through something similar, several times in fact. Names like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tze Tung or Pol Pot came into his mind, names from the human history.

On the other side he had read about other people that had created governments that were not as easily to manipulate or corrupt. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln or Konrad Adenauer.

He breathed in. He wanted the same for his people. He wanted them to govern themselves, make their own rules, elect their leaders. He wanted to give them the freedoms Captain Garret had talked about.

Freedom of speech, the freedom of choice, to equal treatment under the law, to due process of the law, to participate in the government...

He wanted that the children would grow up in a world without the errors of old.

'Those who don't learn from their errors are bound to repeat them,' he had heard some humans say.

They were right.

He opened his eyes and looked as the document he had written over the last days, after long terms of research and the help of Zerberoff. He would put the document on the local networks, allowing everyone to read it. And than they would get the chance to help revising it over the next weeks, before they could say yes to it.

"Constitution of the Free Republic of New Omelos," he read out loud.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Ami grit her teeth and tried to focus through the sound of...well, it sounded expensive at any rate. Even here, in the depths of Professor Habuki's personal lab complex, she couldn't find the uninterrupted quiet she needed to work on the blasted technomage implants the Senshi had in themselves. Mihoshi had apparently paid a visit to Geneva. Dammit.

Ami found it galling that she, working primarily on this for the last year in the midst of the brightest minds on the planet, had only cracked the secrets of two systems, while Rei (FREAKING Rei) back in Japan had, in her spare time, cracked four through meditation.

Oh, how she WISHED for the peace of the shrine.

Still, she was learning a lot from her colleagues. Maybe that was slowing her down?

So, current score was Rei with Sensory Enhancement, Mathematical Assist, Body Sense, and bloody Touch-Telepathy. They kept that last one quiet though. The furore over the existence of real telepaths was still bubbling under the surface all over the world.

Ami had to settle for the Enhanced Healing and Translation Assist. It was not a Universal Translator dammit. Westerners and their pop culture references. It only let you learn other languages much faster and more accurately, but you still had to be taught. Though if she cracked the implant linked to it that she thought was a pattern recognition system she might have something.

At least Pluto (not Setsuna, who was the telepathic lesbian lover of Dark Knight in her mind. She really didn't want to confuse the two.) had taught them how to teleport by themselves in Senshi form.

Stretching to get the kinks out, Ami's foot brushed something. Looking down she saw one of Washuu's injectors (not hypo-sprays. She was spending a bit too much time with the 'Geek Brigade'.) on the floor. What in the-? HOW in the-? No, no. Contemplating Mihoshi was the path to ulsers. Just put the injector with (quick check of the ID tag on the system) retroviral memory boosters? No, she REALLY didn't want to know. Just put it on the desk, she'd return it in a couple of hours when she left for dinner.

Right. Now, this connects to that and gets inhibited by this so...

The relaxing sound of fingers typing filled her ears.

"HEY! AMI!"

"Gah!" Ami jumped in surprise, then snapped around. "Minako! Don't scare me like that!"

"Well you were ignoring me!" Minako scolded her friend. "Anyway I thought you'd gone home for dinner by now so I dropped by."

Ami looked at her computers clock. Yes, it WAS that late.

"OK, let me close up here and we'll go out."

Minako sat herself on the edge of the desk so Ami wouldn't forget. She HAD done it at a few of their study sessions back in Japan. Then she spotted something.

"Ami!" She exclaimed in shock, grabbing the injector from the desk. "Are you doing drugs?!?"

"WHAT? NO!" Ami shrieked, then saw what Minako had picked up. "Whew. Don't DO that Minako!" She complained. "That got left behind by Mihoshi after her visit to the lab."

Minako blinked at her fellow Senshi, nonplussed at her sudden relaxation.

"What does that mean?"

"You know what happens when you and Usagi try to cook?" Ami asked.

"Yes." Minako growled, scowling.

"Take that, multiply it a few hundred times, and apply it to this lab."

"Yikes." The blonde looked at the injector. "What's in it?"

"The memory boosters Professor Habuki uses for those fast teacher devices."

Minako's eyes lit up. "Cool! So I'd be able to remember my collage work!" She exclaimed.

"No you wouldn't!" Ami scolded. "It only works to help you remember skills."

"Like from the past?" Minako asked.

Ami opened her mouth to reply, then closed it without saying anything.

"Let me think on that." She said finally with a contemplative look on her face.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"I really worry about Ami." Minako told Rei through the communicator, 8 hour time difference be damned. Of course, while she'd not got Ami out to the clubs, Minako had been partying. 1:30 in the morning meant that Rei wasn't ready to rip her head off. "She's working so hard she can't remember how long she's been here properly."

"Arranging a group holiday does sound good." Rei agreed. "Getting the new priests up to speed has been taxing Grandpa, and he had to take a break so I'm running the shrine. He'll be back in a couple of weeks so maybe we could arrange something?"

"The island again?" Minako asked.

"Probably. Has Usagi started to balloon yet?"

"Well, she IS getting a little chubby." Minako admitted. "Though I'm not sure if that's the food or the baby. Mamoru is doing well in his internship."

"And Usagi is conning him into buying lots of ice cream."

"And cakes and pastries and..."

"I get the idea." Rei interrupted dryly.

"I kinda envy Haruka and Michiru. Last I heard they were having fun down in France or somewhere."

"Like you're not with all those guys nearby?" Rei asked. "When I can find time I've been over to see Makoto and Hotaru. That health booster Ami found is working wonders on the poor girl. Good job Makoto had so much practice with Usagi so she can keep up with demand."

"I'm trying to see Hotaru eating like Usagi... Um...Nope."

"Oh it's a sight alright." Rei chuckled. "You seen Setsuna lately?"

"Ours or his? Cause Tenchi Masaki moved here a while back and I've seen leatherbutt."

"Leatherbutt?" Rei wondered whether she wanted to know.

"She walks through a crowd and all the guys (and a couple of girls too) turn to stare at her skin-tight leather clad butt. What is up with those leather bodysuits anyway? At least she isn't around much, as she's too sensitive or something. More guys for me!"

"She IS the one who got our Setsuna to loosen up remember?"

"Yeah, the mind reader thing. Knowing Ami she's looking at that as well."

"I know Ami's a workaholic but that's too much." Rei sighed. "She really needs a boyfriend."

"I'd talk to Haruka and Michiru and get her a girlfriend if that'd work." Minako broke off to yawn widely. "But I think Michiru offered to take her to an operation or something and got turned down." She yawned again.

"Go get some sleep." Rei told her. "It's almost two in the morning over there."

"Yeah, I'd better." Minako agreed. "Don't want to sleep during that movie Makoto's going to tonight."

"You're abusing your powers with all that teleporting." Rei scolded amusedly.

"Hey, if you got it, break a leg."

Rei blinked. "Good night." She told her and disconnected.

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"We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot. Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!"

Two man watches as Ryoko sang, not very good at that, and danced around in the command area of Ryo-Ohki's ship-form, while swinging around a bottle of rum.

"Tell me again why we are doing this?" Captain Pip Bernadotte asked Sam Fisher for the n-th time in the last about one and a half month.

"Mostly the money," Sam answered and they both continued to look at Ryoko who was being in one of her 'I am a pirate' moods." But you got that eye replacement from Washuu. Not to mention that your company got M244s and Pulsers."

Bernadotte nodded and watched how Ryoko's not really small chest bounced slightly in that very tight 'pirate' outfit of hers. Both of his eyes were following every movement of said two globes.

"Tell me again why you have suggested us for this job?"

"Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me."

"Because the Agency has filed the 'Wild Geese' as one of the best and the most trustworthy mercenary companies."

Sam breahted in deep before looking at Bernadotte from the corner of his eyes.

"And because of that stunt you pulled on me during that Bosnia mission..."

Bernadotte blinked, not pulling his eyes from the only two things he saw at the moment.

"What stunt?"

Sam narrowed his eyes.

"That stunt involving me drunk and that Drag Queen..."

Bernadotte blinked again and than nodded absentmindedly.

"Oh that one..."

There was a brief silence.

"Remember me to give you a kiss for getting us this job. We could have gotten something stranger. Like Vampire Nazis in giant Zeppelins or something..."

Sam blinked at the vampire Nazi comment and than frowned.

"A kiss from you can't be worse than a kiss from that Drag Queen..."


	56. Chapter 56

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 55 (Party written by Reikson and Cobalt Greywalker over at the Maximum Addventure)

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Within Quantum-Slipstream, the oddly-built form of the customized Washu-masterpiece known as the _Kamidake-II_, was on final approach towards Earth.

The captain of the _Kamidake-II_, Seina Yamada, widely known as a hero and infamous pirate hunter, smiled in anticipation of seeing his homeworld once more. For the last three years, Seina, along with his eight wives, who made up his exclusively-female crew, had been busy culling the Renza Alliance of its pirate problem. It was mostly due to his unusual luck, that his efforts had been successful.

But when Earth officially made its presence known in the greater galactic arena, back in late 2003, Seina had still been hunting down the remnants of the Daluma Pirate Guild, which had once controlled what was currently acknowledged as the sovereign territory of the independent Balta Kingdom.

When he'd finally learned of Earth's unorthodox ascension into the greater galaxy, in January of 2004, Seina was extremely proud of his people. And needless to say, each of his eight wives had never seen him so happy before.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Already considered a hero by the members of the Renza Alliance, its administration, eager to ally itself with the homeworld of its greatest hero, had approached Seina with a formal request: to act as an escort for the Renza Alliance's first contact with Earth.

To that end, a _Dai-Kaiesha_-class warship, named _Balance of Extremes_, had been tasked with not only supporting the Renza Alliance's ambassador, a handsome humanoid man named Takeru Strife, but to also serve as, if necessary, a military asset in defense of the homeworld of the Alliance's greatest hero.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Within the cockpit of the _Kamidake-II_, Amane Kaunaq-Yamada reported aloud, "Captain, sensors are indicating a null-slipstream zone surrounding our destination."

Ryoko Balta-Yamada said, "We might have to travel the rest of the way to Earth at sublight speeds."

Hakuren Yamada, who'd been busy crunching the numbers, said, "If _Balance of Extremes_ is side-by-side with _Kamidake-II_ at its maximum sublight speeds, it's going to take the both of us several minutes before we reach Earth's upper orbit."

Seina said, "Well, we're just going to have to do that, then. Inform _Balance of Extremes_ of this new development and then have _Kamidake-II_ drop out of slipstream."

Along with his other wives, namely Neju na Melmas-Yamada, Kiriko Masaki-Yamada, Karen Yamada, Surien Yamada and Gyokuren Yamada, Hakuren, Amane and Ryoko all said, in unison, "Understood, Captain!"

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Meanwhile, aboard Shabazza, the Dyson Tree announced over its Public-Assembly system, "Red alert. Red alert. Inbound slipstream events. Unknown signatures. Aagenfelt Barrier system online."

Even as several squadrons of _Thunderbolt_-class Starfury fighters swarmed out of Shabazza's launch bays, a G.O.D satellite promptly fired a heavy particle-beam blast in front of the two unknown ships, as a warning shot.

"This is Global-Defense Initiative Center Shabazza to unknown craft. Identify yourselves and your purpose for being in this system immediately, or risk being fired upon." The Dyson Tree intoned.

The response was immediate. A male voice said, "This is the Renza Alliance warship _Balance of Extremes_. We have come to support our ambassador to this world, Takeru Strife, and also to establish both formal diplomatic relations, and a true alliance, with the homeworld of our people's greatest hero."

For about a minute, silence was the only answer that the Renza warship received. Now uneasy, the voice added, "Hello? Anyone there?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Admiral Dubinin stared at the holographic display for a long time, as did many of the men and women that were on duty in the Earth Defense Center and the two vessels that held course towards Earth.

Slowly he got himself back under control and breathed in deep.

"Do we have any ship close to them?"

"HMS _Thunder Child_ with her escort of four Monsoons is close them."

Dubinin nodded and grinned slightly. _Thunder Child_, one of the two new Warlocks. As much he hated the thought of the Americans and the Brits getting the first two Warlocks, as they were clearly a Russian design, Russia would get one of the next finished Warlocks. He chuckled a little about the reason of the British Admiralty naming her _Thunder_ _Child_. In a sense it was like the Americans calling their first space shuttle _Enterprise_, even if it didn't leave the atmosphere.

"Order _Thunder Child_ to act as escort for them and put me through," he said finally, before switching to Japanese with a heavy Russian accent." _Balance of Extremes_, this is Admiral Dubinin of Earth Defense Center. Welcome to the Solar System. Please excuse us for firing on you, but we are a little paranoid after three Doranian Attacks on Earth. We will sending you an escort to accompany you towards Shabazza."

"We will follow your escort," was the reply.

"May I ask, who your hero is? Commodore Tenchi Masaki?"

"No, Seina Yamada, haven't you heard of him?"

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Three years in space and on the hunt on pirates had changed Seina Yamada. Sure he was still the same 'unlucky' and lovable guy he had been before, but he had learned a great deal. Especially when it came down to battling with pirates, through most of the battles were different to the battles he knew from Anime and Manga.

It certainly wasn't like in 'Macross' or 'Legend of Galactic Heroes'. The way of fighing out here wasn't anything like that.

"_Balance of Extremes_, _Kamidake II_, this is HMS _Thunder Child_," said a voice over com, while he and his wifes looked at the massive and ugly hulk of the warship," We are your escort."

Seina absentmindedly noted that _Thunder Child_ was a British ship, what explained the English accent in the speakers Japanese, while he watched how nimbly it and its four vastly smaller escorts moved to fall alongside _Kamidake II_.

"Thank you _Thunder Child_," he heard the commander of Balance of Extremes reply, followed by the same reply from one of his wives, who knew that he was staring at the massive Earth warship.

"What an ugly and big ship," Amane noted.

Seina shook his head and turned away from the hologram to exchange a look with Kiriko, like him she was 'born and bred' on Earth and knew a good deal about the planet. And he guessed that she thought much along the same line as him. _Thunder_ _Child_ would be able to completely destroy _Balance_ _of_ _Extremes_ with its broadside armament if she needed to.

"I think it does it's intended job," he answered, keeping his thoughts to himself.

"And that would be? Looking ugly?"

He exchanged another look with Kiriko.

"Looking menacing and fighting a war."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Multiple unknown slipstream events just outside the Aagenfelt Barrier perimeter," Seiler noted in his usual tone of voice.

Dubinin was close to banging his head on a nearby wooden bulkhead where someone had hung a sheet of paper which was printed with a 'Stress Reduction Kit', consisting of a circle with the sentence 'Bang head here'.

"Doranians?"

Seiler shook his head.

"No sir," was the reply." No identification possible at the moment. But they are firmly in the Quantum 2 level."

Dubinin nodded as the 'automatic response protocol' went into effect as one of the GODs fired towards the unknown contacts, followed by Shabazzas challenge for identification. He was surprised when the response to the challenge was that the unknown ships increased their acceleration towards Earth.

"We got visual," Seiler said finally and the hologram changed to show a number of ships." We count at least one hundred ships of different shapes, forms and sized. They are also rerouting energy to their weapons and shielding systems."

Dubinin frowned. The diversity and tech level of the ships could only mean one thing, pirates. They would get their noses very bloody.

"Flag the unknowns as hostile and commerce defense procedures. Order _Kamidake_ and _Balance_ to remain on course to Shabazza. _Thunder_ _Child_ is to defend them."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The shrine hadn't changed much since they saw it last year, but then most shrines didn't. The only real differences were the landscape (looking greener than the last time, but then it was mid August) and the crowds (far reduced in number, but persistent).

Rei liked the scenery of the area. Sure it was a secured area, being as it was part of the Juraian Embassy's grounds and Yosho's personal property, but that just meant those who came here out of the tours were devout.

Are you sure it was a good idea to leave Hotaru alone at the house? Minako whined telepathically for what seemed the fiftieth time since they started climbing the stairs.

You're such a worry wart. Makoto teased. Being such an old maid will never get you a boyfriend.

Hey! Minako shot a glare at the brunette.

At least I didn't come here to see if the help was cute. Makoto shot back. Besides, Sasami seems a perfectly good person for a member of an arrogant royalty. She teased.

Have I mentioned how grateful I am that Ami managed to unlock most of our abilities last month? Rei asked rhetorically. If anyone could overhear this telepathic conversation I'd be so embarrassed. Minako, Princess Sasami is more than she seems, like Professor Washuu. My instincts say she'll be good for Hotaru. And Makoto, YOU came here to see if the help was cute AND to see if you could examine the holy but Juraian tree. So no more Pot and Kettle comments please?

And I thought Mama and Papa were loud. Hotaru mused from the house at the bottom of the hill.

HUSH. The three Senshi walking up the hill shot back, followed by much telepathic giggling (though it got Hotaru a strange look from Sasami in the house).

"So Rei, what did Gramps want you to discuss with the shrine prince, I mean priest?" Makoto asked aloud.

Rei spared her fellow Senshi a glance before responding. "Grandpa wanted to discuss the evolution of certain Shinto practices with Yosho. He HAS been around for seven hundred years. It IS what Grandpa did his religious studies major on at university. But then we had the war and he never got to pursue it, first with national service then taking over the Shrine."

"That old pervert? At university?" Makoto scoffed lightly.

"There weren't many, if any, women at university at those times." Minako reminded her. "The old plastic roof was crawling in the dirt in those times."

"That's the glass ceiling was much lower, but yes." Rei acknowledged, then tensed up. She continued, "Grandpa didn't meet Grandmother until he had taken over the shrine."

What's up? Minako asked tersely, trying to slowly scan the surroundings without showing.

I don't know. Something dark is around. Rei replied, then reluctantly added. I want to kill it with all my being, but I don't know WHY.

Makoto took a deep breath. "Man the air around here is so crisp." I get the same sort of feeling Rei. She confirmed. Something is distorting Nature around here, and that's WRONG.

Start pre-transformation stage and prime transformation. Minako ordered. "Yeah, I wish I could get out of the city more. England was great for that." Incoming.

It looks like Crown Princess Ayeka and the Ambassadorial Aide Sairyo Tennan. Rei identified them as they came down the stairs.

Is that PINK hair? Makoto asked incredulously. Why would ANY man want PINK hair?

Galactic tastes get weirder and weirder. Minako noted Ready.

Ready. And we complained about Mamoru's taste? Makoto snorted.

Yeah, it does seem-Arm super stage. Rei interrupted her reply.

What? Minako asked while preparing. She knew she'd hate the answer.

Shadows. Rei intoned, preparing some wards. Looks like a Keeper on Ayeka.

Ayeka? Damn they're bold. Makoto noted.

Point. Minako acknowledged. It helps that Pinky is blind as a bat, given the way he's hanging on her.

"What are you doing here?" Sairyo asked with a slight condescending tone as they met on one of the stairway landings from both sides.

Minako and Makoto moved to either side of Rei as they drew up to the Juraians.

"We are here to meet with the priest of this shrine to discuss the business of our mutual history." Rei intoned formally, then added in a stage whisper. "But these two wanted to see if any of the shrine help were cute." Steady... She warned telepathically.

"Rei!" The two of them complained, embarrassed. Sitrep? Minako asked.

I can't tell where it is. Rei replied worriedly. That makes it difficult as we have Pinky and the brain spiders to deal with. Two, maybe three.

Definitely three, probably four. Makoto corrected. "I'm not here to see if there is good looking help here. I was coming to ask if I could have a look at the holy tree, as I've heard it is unique in Japan." What was that?

"The two of you are too easy to tease." Rei chuckled. Not sure. "But we shouldn't keep His Highness the Ambassador waiting. Your Highness, Mr Tennan." She nodded to them and started to go past them. It's getting wor-Oh SH-

GO! Minako ordered.

Later reconstructions would show just how quickly it all went. The three Senshi sprang forward almost too fast for Ayeka to see, and she had watched her brother and Tenchi dueling near equally skilled opponents. It was certainly too fast for her to react with a Keeper trying to control her, and then she knew nothing as Mars slapped a half dozen wards on her critical points.

Sairyo barely noticed the change, as Venus unloaded a right hook as she passed which smacked him into a tree. His hard head prevented him from being knocked out, but that was about it. Venus turned her right hook to a wide left sweep as her fist suddenly contained her Star-headed Crystal Sword. There was a ching sound, then a terrible screech as a Shadow appeared screaming in pain for its lost leg.

The scream was just about drowned out as Jupiter swept left and unloaded a lightning storm over the area she suspected the others were hidden, zapping them and dropping their cloaking fields. The closest had its head smashed in by the end of Jupiter's Thunder Rose Staff, then fried to a crisp and exploded by nearly three million volts of electricity discharging through it.

The third leapt at Mars, who pulled the unconscious princess to her and put her Obsidian Bow against the Shadow's razor clawed legs and called out her attack as it clashed against the unexpectedly bladed outer edge.

"MARS FLAME SNIPER!"

The plasma bolt instantly vaporised the head and torso of the spider-like being, then carved a glowing, glass lined, and twenty meter long trench up the hill.

This woke up Sairyo enough for him to witness Venus carving a large chunk out of the last Shadow. Struggling to bring out his sword he caught Mars holding Ayeka and came to an erroneous conclusion.

"Unhand the Princess-!" He was cut off as Venus beheaded the last Shadow and halted her blade against his neck to the sound of log guardians materializing.

"Clear!"

"Clear!" Jupiter agreed.

Mars disagreed, turning to yell down the hill.

SATURN! LOOK OUT! Her mental voice echoed in the minds of those there.

Sairyo then realized just WHO he was facing and the almost mythical weapon being held against his neck. And fainted, soiling himself.

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It took a little while to get over the little giggle fit induced by her friends, but Hotaru was enjoying Sasami's company as they wandered by the lake in the embassy grounds opposite of the house, the two of them being older in spirit then most would guess.

Which was why Mars' warning caused Saturn to swing her Glaive a little more violently than she otherwise would have.

The Shadow sneaking up on them got to experience that 'bug on a windshield' feeling as the accompanying Silence Wall swatted it back into the tree line and through several trees. Its retaliatory strike of throwing two of these newly forged weapons back wasn't as effective as hoped as Saturn's charge was barely slowed as in one move she sliced the first tree trunk in half length ways, the halves impacting well to the sides of Sasami, and pulverized the second into harmless splinters as the blade of her glaive dropped to the horizontal and speared the Shadow at nearly 100kph. Unfortunately for the Shadow this meant it got painfully impaled in a crater its body had created in a surviving tree and hit by debris from the explosion.

Saturn glared at the spider-like creature with all the hate and malice in her petite body before understanding and teleporting out, screaming telepathically DEAD MAN'S! as she grabbed Sasami.

The Shadows' anti-capture implosion device detonated, the blast wave leveling everything unshielded in a kilometer radius.


	57. Chapter 57

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 56 (Cobalt Greywalker over at the Maximum Addventure)

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The pirate fleet in Earth-Luna space drifted, or at least the remains of it. Two ships out of the 113 had managed to surrender, and three more were intact enough to have atmosphere. Other than that there wasn't a piece larger than the average car floating around. All that debris hid who knew how many life pods. And than there were the pair of ships that somehow made it through all layers of defenses and were now inside of Earth's atmosphere, floating over two cities where GDI couldn't simply shoot them down from orbit.

The sweeper ships were having a field day with this mess. The still living pirates counted themselves lucky.

They didn't know how lucky they were.

Seconds after the blast at the Juraian Embassy, protection details sprang into their principles offices/homes and immediately started moving them to secure locations. Extraterrestrial Embassies sealed themselves as power armoured troops arrived by dropship to secure the perimeter. GDI forces roared into life even as five Monsoons from Home Guard dropped as incandescent fireballs towards Geneva.

Deep in Shabazza, pirates started pleading for their lives and calling for their mothers as the alarms went off. Given that the two weeks of talks between the GP and GDI about their final disposition got interrupted, it will never be known whether the negotiators were annoyed or glad they were delayed.

Admiral Dubinin was actively swearing as he rushed into the command centre, uniform askew.

"What the HELL is going on?!?" He bellowed, his Russian accent very evident.

A holo-screen popped up, showing Surien Yamada.

"A type 4 implosion device has just detonated in the grounds of the Juraian Embassy Admiral. Our scanners indicate they are heavy four life signs. Wait while I get the guestbook...Senshi?" Surien was rather puzzled as she didn't recognise the term.

The Admiral did, having been briefed.

"They are allies, technomages I think you call them."

"Technomages? Here?" Amane asked in surprise and she entered the bridge of the Kamidake II. A quick glance at the situation and she nodded. "Admiral, this is an attack on Juraian soil and technically..."

"Agreed." The admiral nodded. "I'll pass this on to GDI Command. Set up a liaison and send a couple of officers down. Shabazza out."

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"This be a right mess, this be." Venus muttered in English to herself. That was something of an understatement. The National Police Agency had taken control of the local police and were co-operating with Interpol, GDI Intelligence, the Juraian Diplomatic Security Group, and the GP officers available. That wasn't much of a problem, as the Shadows had started dissolving as soon as they died, and they would not get anything from any remains that survived in the shield they and the guardians had put up.

No, the problem was Mercury had teleported in with Washuu. SHE might be able to find something.

Sighing, Venus surveyed the scene. Mercury was examining Princess Ayeka with Mars standing guard. Washuu was examining the ground where the Shadows had died, with Scene Of Crime officers and GP officer Kiriko Masaki-Yamada. Jupiter was down the hill at the explosion site helping the explosives experts and GP officer Ryoko Balta-Yamada. Saturn was giving her statement to Mihoshi whilst guarding Princess Sasami. And then there was...

"Lady High Mage?"

Venus turned to see GP Officer Amane Kaunaq-Yamada standing there. That was the other thing, all the aliens looked at them with outright awe (and more than a little fear).

"Yes Officer? And there's no need to be formal, Venus will be fine." And they were damn respectful too.

"Lady Venus." Amane nodded. "Can you tell us just how you detected them? Given what Lady Mercury told us, they must have been here months."

"Mars discovered them. She has the better spiritual senses of us. From what she and Mercury have told me, the princess was fighting the Keeper. That usually leads to a noticeable degree of mental unbalance."

"Indeed." Yosho noted, appearing by them and causing Amane to jump in surprise. Venus made a small gesture, putting up a privacy field.

"Your Highness." She nodded. "It depends how emotional the princess is, but close associates should easily be able to tell something is wrong in such cases. That's why I'm quite surprised they hadn't been discovered already."

"It seems I will have to have a long talk with my Aide."

"When he gets cleaned up." Venus agreed. Yosho and Amane had faintly disgusted expressions on their faces as they nodded.

"Well, this is certainly not how I expected things to go when we came to visit the shrine." Amane sighed.

"I would not be surprised." Yosho smiled. "How are you coping with the others?"

"It took a while, but the eight of us sorted things out. It allows us to gang up on Seina, and he needs it at times."

"Eight of you? With one guy?" Venus asked, surprised. "Bedtimes must be fun."

Amane just smiled a secretive smile.

"As long as everyone loves each other it's fine with me." Venus shrugged and smiled, then became serious. "I'd keep that quiet if I were you. Monogamy is the accepted norm on this world. I can hear the cries of indignation from the religious groups already."

"Will my sister recover?" Yosho asked, moving the subject back.

Mercury? Venus asked, sending the question.

Removing the Keeper will be tricky, I've not done this in this life, but doable. It's the psychological damage I'm afraid of. She'll probably need serious help.

"Physically? That's highly likely, but it's been a while since Mercury has done something like this. Psychologically? I'd bring in some help but make sure they do their jobs. The sort of trauma involved could easily be used to 'fix' someone the way 'they' want."

Yosho nodded, face grave.

"I requested some psychiatrists earlier, as I worried about Ayeka not handling the stress of her first serious diplomatic assignment. One more thing to discuss with both my Aide and my Father."

Both women knew those wouldn't be enjoyable conversations.

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A brown paper bag was placed on the small wooden table in front of Oberleutnant Marek Bosorevski.

"There you go."

Marek grinned at his driver and slowly opened the bag, pulling out a box. Than he proceeded to open the box and took out the piece of junkfood inside.

He was just about to take a bit out of the McRib as a loud explosion rocketed the trainwagon and the surrounding area, managing to blow out one of the windows, showering him and his subordinates with glass. More smaller explosions followed in quick succession.

"What the..."

Dropping the burger he quickly turned around to look out of burst train window. Only to look at a scene that could have come from a cheap scifi movie, as he saw how the tall building that stood next to the Main Train Station of Dortmund.

A large spaceship formed like a shark hovered above the core of Dortmund using its smaller dorsal weapons to simply destroy random buildings while smaller craft rained down.

Marek let go of a number of hard Russian curses he had learned from his Russian father.

He stared as he saw how people began to run away from the center of attention and turned around for a moment looking at the back of the wagon, where he knew their tank was. Normally they would be on their way to a test area in Eastern Germany for life ammo tests and going against a few Leos, but a damaged train engine had held them here in Dortmund.

"Okay, guys," he slowly said." We're going to see if our little tank lives up to its name. Thorsten, fire up the reactor, I'm going and help Alex to load the mags."

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Captain David Goldmann stared in shock as the massive golden dome of the Kipat Hasela collapsed, cased by massive damage of the area beneath, where the Kotel used to be. Than he stared at the massive shark shaped ship that hovered above Jerusalem and randomly fired its weapons at the city.

Two additional torrents of light hit the Kipat Hasela making the muslim holy place collapse even faster.

Years ago, Goldmann might have cheered for its destruction, but back than he had been just a kid.

He wasn't religious but as he closed his eyes, he spoke a quick prayer for the men and women who were dying because of that ship above them.

Than smaller vessels detached from the large ships and smaller figures rained down into the streets. Human-like and completely alien beings started to run through the streets, firing their beam weapons and even dismembering people with swords and other weapons.

Goldmann breathed in deep as he looked towards Lieutenant Levi. The nearly orthodox Jew was pale and gripped his M4. He was nearly shaking and Goldmann had the feeling that he needed to slap the other soldier to get him back into the real world.

"Levi," he said, but the other man didn't react.

"Levi," he tried again, putting his hand on Levis shoulder.

The Lieutenant jerkerd, pulling up his M4. At first Goldmann thought that he was about to shoot at him, but as Levis gun began to fire he had his weapon pointed to an area behind Goldmann.

Goldmann whirled around, his own M4 pointing in the same direction only to see how the bullets from the M4 bounced of on some sort of armor.

"Oh shit."

The armored being laughed loudly and slowly made its way towards the two Israeli soldiers.

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"Bored..."

There was a loud grumbling behind Lieutenant Marcel 'Weasel' Hammer, as he said that.

"Bo-ored..."

Than space lit up again as another Doranian cruiser detonated in a short lived nuclear sun.

"Booooooring..."

"Shut up, Weasel and fly."

"I just wanna pull the trigger," Weasel whined." I hate 'Wild Weasel' operations. Nothing to shoot at."

Behind Weasel, Lieutenant Dan 'Eyes' Spitz rolled his eyes before turning to his displays again.

"Trigger happy as you are, I wonder who let you into the Navy."

His fingers danced over the touchscreen as he adapted the setting of the powerful electronic warfare package of their Thunderbolt. It was powerful enough to jam and emulate several small Narn vessels and let the First Narn Attack Task Force seem to be bigger than it was. The other Thunderbolts of their squadron and a single AWACS Monsoon did the same.

As it was, even as they were inside the battle, they were not seeing much action.

"Booooored..."

Spitz closed his eyes for a moment, and tried to count to ten. But he knew in the end he would bop Weasel over the back of his helmet again, like a good number of times before.

"Bored, bored, bored, bored, boredy bored..."

"Thats it," Spitz exclaimed and bopped Weasel over the helmet.

Weasel jerked, sending the Thunderboilt into a light spin.

"What did ya do that for?"

Spitz groaned again.

"I'm going to request to be relieved of this post..."

"Don't go... I will only be more bored..."

"Argh..."


	58. Chapter 58

Back Home

Warringer

Chapter 57

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After having been dropped by one of the freighter Monsoons, the sleek metallic shape continued to drop towards the deep atmosphere of Jupiter. It was already falling for several hours, its thermoelectric generators providing more than enough energy for various scientific experiments, instruments and its on-board computer.

This computer, even if it had a tachyon channel connection to Earth and was shielded by several layers of lead and low powered shields, could be considered to be a stone age computer. Various circuit boards with hardened TTL microchips, resistors, capacitors and transistors made up its core, reminiscent of the computers of old. It only had the computing power of a 1980s 80186, but its software was making up for the lack of computing power.

But even than its power was more than enough for the job it would do.

It continued to fall towards the atmosphere of Jupiter, the metallic surface shining in the light of the sun and illuminating the painted on symbols of NASA, ESA and GDI, as well as its name, Pluto.

While it looked much like a missile, there were several things that set it apart from normal missiles. It lacked the four equally sized wings, trading it for a delta wing and something that looked much like the tail of a plane. Another thing where the two large air intakes and a pair of nuzzles that looked more like those of a jet fighter than that of a missile.

Finally it began to encounter the first thin parts of the gas giants atmosphere and its nose cone slowly began to glow in a deep red. Only the advanced construction materials prevented it from burning up in the upper atmosphere as it fell deeper at speeds that were well above Mach 15.

As the atmosphere got thicker the computer noted the increasing flow of the hydrogen based atmosphere and slowly opened the air intakes allowing the gases to stream into its engines.

Its engines had been born in the minds of a number of scientists during the early time of the nuclear age as part of the project it now carried the name of, Project Pluto. Twin specially designed 500MW nuclear reactors acted as engines of the large missile and now the computer pulled the moderators that had previously prevented the reactor to get into its hot phase, only producing enough energy to power the computer via a large number of thermoelectric devices.

Now however the twin reactors began to work, heating up the atmosphere that streamed through them, propelling them through the nuzzles and providing thrust.

The speed that had dropped as the missile dropped deeper into Jupiters atmosphere began to climb again until it was steady at Mach 7 and the computer leveled it into a horizontal flight path, the pair of delta wings providing nothing more than control as the missile itself was kept in its flight through sheer power.

The entire hull of the fast moving missile began to heat up until its glowed in a dark red, stripping away any paint on its surface, but none of the heat managed to get into the interior of the missile as it was blocked by the advanced ceramics and alloys of Earth Alliance minds.

Moving through the high atmosphere of Jupiter at high speed, its instruments began to do what they were intended to do, analyze the upper atmosphere as well as sending telemetry towards Earth.

On Earth, more exactly in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the data was received by two groups. Both with different interest in the results of Pluto's flight.

Somewhere in Geneva, a whole group of people snickered and threw a party at this cunningly concealed test of the first planetary style weapon of mass destruction. It would only be a matter of time until more Plutos where build with the intended specs, capable of delivering several dozen thermonuclear warheads to any target on any planet they were dropped on. And no planetary or orbital weapon would be able to intercept the Mach 7 HySLAM.

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Sarachi Hasami was glad to be a pirate. While being able to do much of the things he wanted to do, he didn't have to take the responsibility for it. And most of the stuff he wanted to do was raising mayhem and make some money from it.

This time however he thought that maybe his captain and their commander had bitten of a little more than they could chew. What they had awaited to find was a defenseless planet of their scrounge, that had caused Galaxy Police to route them out nearly complete. A planet that was ripe for their picking. What they had found was a planet with a very good defense and a very effective fleet backing up that defense. Just two ships had been able to make it through the atmosphere.

But they were causing mayhem and destroying as much as they could until the defense of this planet would find a way to fight them. And there wasn't even one person who would fight against them.

Hasami was piloting an armed hover vehicle and cruising above the city, diving down upon an unsuspecting ground vehicle now and than and making strafing runs across the buildings and long streets.

As he glanced down towards the ground he blinked as he noted a strange tracked vehicle. It was a boxy vehicle and second box with a cylinder sticking from it was on top of the first box.

He blinked once or twice before grinning. It had to be some sort of transporter and from the look of the ground around it it was very heavy. Not very fast and unable to get out of the way of his fire. It would be helpless against a strafing run and be destroyed along with whatever it transported.

He brought his hover craft around before pulling it into a dive towards the vehicle. As he began to shoot the plasma cannon of his craft he was very surprised to see how the plasma bolts harmlessly impacted into a shield around the vehicle and how the second box with the cylinder began to swing around.

He frowned as he pulled his craft up and prepared for a second strafing run. Maybe it was a transport for something valuable?

He glared at the vehicle as he made his second dive, obvious about the fact that he was staring down the cylinder.

His mind hadn't enough time to register the short flash of light from the cylinder as a High Velocity 88mm tungsten projectile went straight through the front window, only to sheer off the top of his head before destroying the fusion cell of his craft resulting in a detonation that let debris damage the surrounding buildings and harmlessly peppered the tracked vehicle.

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"A little suicidal, wasn't he?" Leutnant Alexander Hinrich asked as he looked at the screen in front of him.

The controls of the Krauss-Maffei Pzkw XI 'Tiger' were different from those of other tanks and reflected the fact that this beauty was a design that was completely new. The designers of Krauss-Maffai had taken some bit from the Israeli Merkava, with driver motors and the reactor in front of the command area, while the turret was remotely controlled and also held all ammunition for the 88mm HV Railgun, the 40mm HV auto cannon and the TOW launchers. There was also the commanders weapon, a remote controlled 15mm PPC instead of caliber .50 machine gun mostly found in 'classical' tanks.

So the commander, gunner and driver were sitting in a rather comfortable cockpit hidden behind Carbonat VII armor and a shield that was rated for an assault shuttle, looking at the rest of the world through the armored cameras all over the tank.

Oberleutnant Marek Bosorevski, the commander, raised an eyebrow, taking a bite of the McRib he nearly had forgotten when all this had started, careful not to smear any of the burgers sauce over his uniform or the interior of his tank.

"For me it looked like he didn't know what a tank was."

Than he patted Hinrich on the shoulder, incidently managing to smear some of his burgers sauce to stick to his gunners uniform.

"Good shooting by the way. I don't think anyone ever managed to take out a plane with the main gun of a tank. You're the first."

Hinrich grinned.

"The turret actuators are very fast ans responsive."

He grinned some more.

"And very accurate. I could shoot the eye from a fly with the main gun."

In front of both, Feldwebel Thorsten Michaelis chuckled and waved his hand in front of his nose.

"I smell too much self admiration."

Bosorevski mock glared at Hinrich.

"You better didn't."

Hinrich just rolled his eyes and frowned as he looked at the screen in front of him.

"Someone just dropped by to look what happened to that shuttle."

Both commander and driver of the massive tank turned towards their own screens.

Outside there was a group of several aliens skidding around the corner, two or three of them in something that looked like powered armor. They stopped and looked at the tank for some time before they started to shoot, plasma and particle beams slamming into the tanks shields.

Bosorevski glanced at the stress meter of the shield. It was steadily hovering around thirty percent of shield stress, not even close to getting to the magical ninety percent mark where the shield got into something the eggheads called cascade failure because of the shield internal feedback loops or something.

"What do you think? Should we get them down the hard way or the fun way?"

"Fun way," Michaelis said with a smirk and his feet stepped down onto the two gas pedals for the left and right thread, causing over 90 tons of heavy tank to jump forward, racing towards the bad guys.

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Captain Thomas Dodge, United States Navy, glared down at the offending piece of paper he was holding in his hands. Dodge was the commander of the _USS_ _Stingray_, one of the currently only three vessels of Wolf Pack Fleet as the stealth fleet of the GDI was called. _Stingray_ was a modified Monsoon class gunboat, fitted exclusively for stealth operations, but retained most of its offensive potential, including the scaled down G.O.D. Particle beam cannon that took about twenty percent of the ships volume.

Most of the crew, were reminded of the situation on the old _USS_ _Stingray_, an old WWII diesel sub, in terms of space for the crew, and didn't complain. Much anyway. At least they didn't have to put up with Pascoe anymore.

"Is something the matter," he heard a male voice behind him asking.

He turned slightly and looked at the Ferron, who had been placed on his ship of all things as part of an officers exchange program.

Commander Serkal Harnov used to be the executive officer of a Ferron frigate before becoming part of the officers exchange program and ended up on Stingray to learn about the humans way of waging silent war.

Dodge said nothing for the moment, instead he reached for the microphone of the ships 1MC.

"Attention," he said." We just received news from Earth. It seems that Earth has been attacked again. By pirates of all things this time."

Around him the crew fell into a silence, not daring to do anything. Stapanek who had chosen to visit the bridge at this moment, stopped and Dodge could see him first going pale and than slowly red.

"I'm now holding new orders from Admiral Mancuso. It seems that the interrogators have been able to... 'convince'... some of the survivors to give up the coordinates of their home base. Salvaged computer cores have confirmed these coordinates. We are closest to the planet and are to proceed under maximal speed to the system and hares the pirates in system until a larger fleet can arrive to take care of the remaining pirates."

Again he stopped and lowered the piece of paper.

"As far as I can tell, we are dealing with a planet that was invaded by the pirates and most likely used to build their ships. Its very likely that we have to deal with fixed defenses and, hopefully, one or two shipyards. An additional optional order is to try and secure any shipyards we might encounter."

Harnov was able to see the evil smile on Dodges face.

"Okay people, lets play pirate on some pirates and steal us a few shipyards."

Somehow Dodge knew that this new orders might be able to counter those rumors about that special tattoo...

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"Shit, shit, shit, shit," Goldmann continued to curse as he ran through the streets of Jerusalem as fast as he could. He didn't look back lest he would be reminded of the scene that he had witnessed not too long ago when an armored alien had literally ripped apart Lieutenant Levi.

He tried to ignore the mocking laughter that sounded behind him, coming from the armored alien that had told him to run after Goldmann had emptied an entire clip of AP munition from his M4 into it.

"Shit, shit, fuck," he continued, wiping away the blood of Levi that had been splattered all over him while the alien had ripped him apart.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" he screamed at a group of Palestine." GET SOMEWHERE SAFE!"

The men and women stared at him as he ran towards them, the M4 dangling from its strap as the Isreali soldier ran like he had never ran before, even during basic training.

Goldmann swallowed hard as he forced himself to stop rather than continue to run. He whirled around, and grabbed his M4. He just hoped that he was able to change the magazine of the rifle before the alien was onto them all.

The mocking laughter continued to sound through the narrow streets and Goldmann didn't turn around as he fumbled his his rifle.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck..."

He did manage to change the magazine before the alien slowly stalked around the last corner that Goldmann had turned around.

The aliens laughter took on a crazy sound as it saw Goldmann and the group of people behind him.

"How cute," the alien mocked," he thinks he can fight back and safe his friends..."

Goldmann swallowed hard, his aim wavering slightly as he pointed his M4 at the alien. He knew that his weapon wasn't able to get through the aliens armor, but also that the aliens seemed to prefer to fight in close quarters.

He was surprised and horrified as someone grabbed him from behind for a moment, before releasing him. He stumbled back before realizing that one of the Palestine had made a grab for the grenades that hung from him and had pulled the pins, throwing them one after the other at the alien that still was more than twenty meters away and very slowly advanced towards them.

The grenades dropped in front of the alien and one came to rest between its legs. The alien stopped.

"Rocks don't hurt me," the alien sneered.

"Fuck," was all Goldmann could say as turned around and dropped to the ground before the grenades exploded one after the other.

There was a shrieking sound of pain coming from the alien as the grenades detonated, rippling the area around them with deadly shrapnel and debris that was able to penetrate the armor.

Goldmann didn't get up for several more seconds. As he did, all he could do was stare at the bloody remains of the alien and shake.


	59. Chapter 59

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 58

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During the few month since First Impact, Earth had found itself with a rapidly growing economy thanks to a heavy influx of new advanced technologies, more numerous and better trained workers and engineers as well as the need to be able to defend itself against extra-terrestrial threats.

While CNN, BBC and the like were filled with news about the growing space and space based forces, and the politicians were funneling more and more money into the gaping maws of the new space based naval forces, a great number of generals and admirals directed money into smaller projects to upgrade the technology they already had until the large companies were able to take care of their still planet bound forces.

Germany was one of the few countries, besides Scandinavia and other smaller first world nations, that funneled more money into upgrading their already existing military technologies.

Two of these projects were the Panavia Tornado IDS and the Diehl IRIS-T ER.

The only changes about the Tornado IDS were rather moderate, but intense. The entire electronics suit of the IDS was exchanged with the electronics suit of the Thunderbolt Starfury, which was already in production by MBB, and able to receive a software upgrade to work in the Tornado. The other change was switching from the dual Mauser BK-27 27mm cannons to the similarly sized dual Mauser 20mm PCC-24.

This resulted in the Tornado IDS GR.5 variant with a vastly improved EW and dogfight performance, even greater than that of a vanilla F-22.

The Diehl IRIS-T ER or Infra Red Imaging System Tail/Thrust Vector-Controlled Extended Range missile was another modified version of an already existing project, through the IRIS-T had been in the last stages of development before actual deployment.

The previously short ranged air-to-air missile had been modified to carry a more powerful warhead, an improved IR seeker head and an improved solid propellant, while the rest of the missile remained the same, giving the IRIS-T ER a range of 40 kilometers and a higher velocity, while remaining as maneuverable as the original IRIS-T.

Maybe it was a sense of fate that the day when a German city was under attack of extra-terrestrial pirates, was the day the German Luftwaffe had scheduled a life fire test for the IRIS-T ER carried by the Tornado IDS GR.5.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The sonic boom from a pair of Tornado and four Typhoons shook the ground as they passed in little under two hundred meters above.

Both planes were running at their highest possible speed, being a little more than before thanks to a small computer program that optimized the fuel burn of the after burners continuously.

Leutnant Joachim Bauer was nervous as he glared at the holographic HUD in front of him. It wasn't just the fact that he was flying into maybe the first actual combat action of a German fighter pilot since World War II, but also the fact that his GR.5 variant Tornado used to be a GR.4 variant until about four weeks ago and still had a few bugs that needed to be ironed out of the software of the new electronics.

At least those bugs weren't something that would cause him to slam into the ground at supersonic speeds.

"There we got him," his weapons officer, Leutnant Mark Walddorf, said from behind him." And he brought some friends."

Immediately several targeting rectacles appeared in the HUD and Bauer didn't feel any more confident. Rather the opposite actually, it made him more nervous.

"Anyone else feel like they are in 'Independence Day'?" he asked out loud, directing his question at his wingman and the pilots of the Tyhpoons.

"Lets hope they are not going to shoot green shit at us."

Bauer suppressed a slight groan.

"At least there are enough targets for everyone of us," said another pilot. "The big guy is the problem through. Any idea how to take him?"

"No idea," Bauer noted dryly and glanced towards the small tactical map on his dashboard, pressing a few buttons. "But it seem that the Amis have launched some of their fighters from Ramstein. Maybe they have some big guns to down the big guy."

"Thankfully, he would go down in the Westfahlenpark at the moment," Walddorf noted. "Could change any moment through."

"Stop talking," Bauer finally noted as they speed over Lünen, a small city only ten kilometers north of Dortmund." We are there."

Bauer breathed in deep as he pushed the engine leavers forward to kill some of his speed.

"Fox Two," he spoke and with a slight pressure of his trigger finger one of his IRIS-T missiles flew towards one of the armed shuttles of the pirates, before pulling the Tornado into a rise. The pilot of the second Tornado did the same.

"Typhoon One through Four," he said coldly," Do a few flybys on the Big Guy and look if we can't raise some hell with it, while we take care of the shuttles. Other wise everyone for himself."

"Roger that, Tornado One."

Below them the two IRIS-T missiles had found their targets, detonating as they slammed directly through the lightly armored hull of the shuttles, reducing them into debris that rained down onto the city that burned here and there.

"About time you got here," a new voice said over the ground-air channel." We can't take all of them on our own."

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Back in 1962 J.C.R. Licklider conceived the idea of a 'Galactic Network', a series of globally interconnected computer that eventually eventually condensed into the first larger computer network, the ARPANET.

Over the next few decades, other networks were created and the TCP/IP protocol allowed to link more and more computers eventually becoming what was to be known at 'The Internet'.

In the last decade of the 20th century and the first few years of the 21th century, the Internet continued to grow in size and in content, even if about eighty percent of the entire traffic of the Internet composited of Spam messenges and e-mails.

It was the influx of new technologies from the so called 'Earth Force Files', which were slowly copied from an orbiting server to just about every server of any university worldwide, that increased the amount of traffic and computing ability of the entire Internet.

But like all protocols used in networks galaxy wide, the TCP/IP protocol had its inherited problems and, compared to most galactic protocols, a horrible error tolerance. With the growth of traffic in the worldwide networks, servers and routers, errors began to grow in number, completely randomly forming and being dealt with.

The new advanced computers and networks continued to use the TCP/IP protocol and the amount of errors began to grow.

Nathan, the quantum computer on the moon, connected itself to the Internet and did some of his business there, leaving behind errors and program traces and fragments in the Internet.

Slowly but surely these errors and traces began to form patterns, some errors responding to others, while using program fragments and faulty router programs as relays. The patterns began to grow, linking up and developing further and further.

Slowly they began to use individual computers to respond to each other, not caring if these computers were working with Microsoft, UNIX, Apple or Linux based operation systems as the Operation systems where able to interact with each other and shared mostly the same basic programs.

Had someone been able to see the patterns and links between the errors and their responses to each other, they would have been quite surprised to see that these growing patterns slowly began to form something that could be called neural responses and slowly becoming something that could be called a neural net.

Something like this had only happened once before on Ferrol, as galactic computers were much more secure and had a far better networking protocols and less chaotic growth of networks and networking ability on a global scale.

It was the beginning of a planetary networked sentience. The Internet itself slowly but surely gained sentience and conscious thought processes.

If this was a positive development remained to be seen as the growing sentience was presented with a multitude of Spam, porn and /b/.

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It was this moment when Goldmann decided that this was officially the worst day of his life. Just ten minutes ago he had been on the run from a power armored alien invader, before a Palestine kid of maybe ten grabbed his grenades to hurl them towards the alien and killed it.

Now he was on the run from a whole group of alien invaders in powered armor.

It wasn't something he liked.

He ran around a corner only to catch sight of a barricade, not much more than a car, with several soldiers behind, pointing their weapons in his direction.

One of the soldiers made a rapid hand motion mentioning Goldmann to get behind the barricade or move out of the line of fire.

"Fuck," he cursed and ran towards the barricade as he noted that one of the soldiers was holding what looked like a LAW.

Another thing he idly noted was that the soldiers where Americans. For a moment he wondered about that, before he remembered the American base that was established some time back close to Neguev.

Just as Goldmann dropped behind the car. He leaned against the side of and began to fumble with his M-4 with shaking hands, trying to change to his last magazine as fast as possible.

"There they come," he heard one of the Americans say and the other soldiers popped down on the car.

There was loud laughter from where the pirates had to be and Goldmann breathed in deep before popping up behind the car and steadying himself against the car next to a Afro-American Private.

"Bad day?" the American asked and Goldmann had to fight the urge to stare at him and forced himself to stare at the three pirates down the street. They were standing there trying to look intimidating, and succeeding as far as Goldmann was concerned. The gunfire from all around them and the low whooshing sounds of the still firing pirate ship didn't help either.

"Worst," Goldmann pressed out.

"Now, Kowalski," came from the American Sergeant of the small group of soldiers and they opened fire.

The LAW left its tube, streaking towards one of the pirates, impacting in his chest and letting the upper body explode in a shower of blood and gore as the powered armor carved in from the explosion of the Rocket Propelled Grenade, much like the frag grenade that had killed the other pirate earlier.

The soldiers around Goldmann held their fire and Goldmann became more nervous, trying to find an answer to the question why they didn't fire. He was pretty sure that the Americans had something in mind to deal with the other pirates, but for the love of God he wasn't able to say what it was.

Than he noted several familiar boxes lined left and right of the street.

Down the street the other two blood and gore covered pirates looked at the still standing remains of the third pirate. Everything above the waist of the pirate was missing and only the powered armor was holding the remains standing.

Than the looked at each other and towards the barricade with the soldiers behind. With a loud war cry something like laser swords activated in their hands and they stormed towards the barricade.

The American Sergeant just grinned and stood up behind the car, pressing a small trigger that was hidden in his hand, causing the six boxes at the walls left and right of the street to detonate, showering the immediate area in front of them to be showered by high speed ball bearing.

Six Claymore mines had turned a part of the street into a killing field, killing the two remaining pirates.

Goldmann stared down the range and at the cloud of dust and smoke. Next to him the Private tapped on his shoulder and Goldmann turned his head to look into a grinning face.

"Snickers?"

Goldmann blinked and than looked down at the piece of snack food in the Privates hand.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Status," came the voice of Captain Weiss over the TacNet and Lieutenant Davidson looked down on the various controls.

He was flying one of just four Thunderbolt Starfuries the Isrealian Air Force had been able to build up to date. And now he was getting ready to get it into the first fight. Not that it was the first operation he had took part in, but the first where he would fly the Thunderbolt.

He looked to the side and at the other three Thunderbolts and the F-16 and F-15 that were flying in formation towards their common target, the alien starship and armed shuttles above Jerusalem.

"David Two ready," he said into the microphone and breathed in deep. He really hoped that the Thunderbolts were up to their specs in the atmosphere. "And on a sidenote I feel like Will Smith in Independence Day..."


	60. Chapter 60

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 59

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It was interesting to see how some people were able to sober up fully in a matter of minutes.

Sam Fisher had now the chance to see someone sober up in barely a second.

Than again it was easy to explain, considering that Ryoko was a genetically engineered being. Now she was showing a determination he was sure that she had displayed it in Sao Paolo as she helped the local defenders against the Doranians that had landed there and earned her the nickname of 'The Avenging Angel of Sao Paolo'.

Even through she was now completely sober and not playing 'pirate', she was still dressed in that ridiculous outfit of an 'Earth Pirate'.

"Isn't it technically going after 'brothers'?" Pip Bernadotte, leader of a band of mercenaries, wondered as he walked up to the holographic display that showed some tactical data they had gotten from Earth.

Ryoko glared at him for a moment and Sam once again noted that she was rather unique.

"They attacked Earth," she said with a flat tone of her voice." No pirate does that when I can help it."

For some it might have been surprising to see Ryoko Habuki, an real honest to god extraterrestrial, to be so protective towards Earth, but Sam knew better. During the past few weeks he had had the chance to get to know her better. He knew that Ryoko used to be rather desperate for role models that were different to her previous ones, through he doubted that Washuu would like to hear that .

Sure, she was tough as nails, but even than she was surprisingly sensitive about life. He also knew that she was in fact traumatized by her past experiences, first to be forced to become the most dreaded pirate in the galaxy thanks to mind control, and than being imprisoned for a few hundred years with no way of doing anything.

She wanted to get away from that and Earth pretty much allowed her to do, what no other world in the galaxy would allow her. Out here, she was still seen as the dreaded pirate she was and there were still worlds and smaller nations out for her head.

Earth on the other side saw her as a good person and had helped her on her journey to find herself. First Admiral Masaki had more more or less looked after her and given her help, while Ajeka hadn't. After that, she had become a hero for the people of Earth in Sao Paolo and from there for the world. Okay sure, the Brasilian army could have taken care of the Doranians, but she had done more by directing Ryo-oh'ki to help putting out fires and personally helping the people.

What had followed was a meeting with Pope John Paul II and the Dalai Lama, the two most holy men on Earth and President Ryan asking her to become a US citizen.

It was way more than anyone else would have done for her.

Now she was in a mood that told Sam that she would gladly destroy a whole planet if she could get away with it. Not that she would be able to do that.

He pities the pirates that would be in their way.

"Better you prepare the men," Sam noted. "We will be cracking some heads shortly."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Tenchi sat in his office and glanced down on the sheet of paper he held in his hand. His face was carefully schooled not to betray any of his feeling or any of the thoughts he had at this current moment.

So a group of pirates had thought that Earth was an easy target, didn't they? He tried to imagine their surprise when they found out that that wasn't the case.

That they had in fact managed to get two of their ships down to the surface was a bad thing through and Tenchi tried to imagine what mayhem they were causing. His eyes fell on the names of the two cities they were attacking and drew in a sharp breath.

Jerusalem?

That was bad. It could as well ignite the whole politically unstable area. On the other hand he was sure that the pirates were not making any difference between Israelis and Palestinians. It always needed a common enemy to unite people. The big powers of Earth had done the same after all.

"Pirates..."

He glanced up from the sheet of paper and into the face of Seto as he heard her voice. The door to his office closed behind her and for a brief moment he wondered why Dark Knight hadn't notified him.

Great, now he had to deal with his Great-great-whatever-mother, who hated any pirates guts.

At the moment her face was as carefully shooled as his own, not betraying anything.

"Yes," he said," I take it the grave pipe is already full of it?"

She nodded slowly and Tenchi shook his head.

"I really need to talk with my people," he noted dryly.

She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing about it.

"So Earth has a pirate problem," she said instead." I could help you with that."

Tenchi narrowed his eyes.

"I'm sure you could," he replied.

Seto's hatred for pirates was pretty much common knowledge and Tenchi remembered what Hak'ey had said about how she dealt with them. Having gotten to know her a little better during the time she was aboard, he was sure that that one time wasn't very different to other times. Destroying a whole civilization to deal with a few pirates? She clearly didn't believe that there was such a thing as overkill.

She smiled a little at his answer.

"Than, I will..."

Tenchi interrupted her.

"You will do nothing," he said, his face still not betraying any feelings or thoughts." This is an Earth problem. And only of Earth."

For a moment her eyes widened, before she shot Tenchi a glare. Lesser men would have had a brown pants moment, but Tenchi has stared down Vorlons and Shadows and frankly they had looked more scary than Seto, even through Tenchi knew that she was the real power behind the Jurian throne and thad the power to back it up.

"You know what you are doing, right?" she asked him.

Tenchi simply nodded.

"Yes, I do. I know exactly what I am doing."

He stopped for a moment and glared back at her.

"These pirates have attacked Earth. You know as well as I do that the Emperor granted independence to Earth. As such the Jurian Empire is not responsible for the defense of Earth."

Not that they had ever taken it seriously, he added to himself.

"And I know how you personally deal with pirates," he continued before she could say anything." I don't care how much you hate pirates of any kind. I don't care about your personal vendetta. All I care about is the security of Earth and the protection of Earth's interest."

He breathed in deep.

"Dark Knight?" he asked out loud, knowing very well that he didn't really need to say anything out loud.

"Yes, Tenchi?" the voice of his ship asked.

"I want you to monitor all communication of your guest Seto," he ordered." Cut all communication of her and her aide as soon as they mention our current piracy problem. I don't want anything of it to reach the Jurian Empire."

Seto, still standing on the other side of the table, stared at him for a moment before her face darkened.

"Do you know who you are dealing with?" she asked her voice dangerously low.

Tenchi's facial expression still didn't change.

"I know very well who I am dealing with," he said." Seto Jurai, the 'Devil Princess of Jurai', bane of all pirates in the galaxy and the real power behind the Emperor. But at this moment you are on my ship. And on my ship I can do what I want. Not to mention that I take care of Earth's interests."

Seto's eyes narrowed.

"And how are you dealing with the pirates than?" she wondered, her expression growing cold.

"The US Navy has dispatched a ship to deal with them" Tenchi said and glanced back on the communiqué," The _USS Stingray_. Additionally Ryo-oh'ki was notified about it. I'm pretty sure that Ryoko wants to have a word with these pirates."

"Ryoko..."

Seto's voice clearly told Tenchi what she thought about that. He was sure that it was nothing good, considering that she used to be a pirate and truth be told had gone back to that, through she was a privateer, a pirate backed by the US government.

"Who is better to deal with pirates that an ex-pirate?"

As the now fuming Seto turned around, Tenchi sighed. Back to getting 'Operation Midway' ready now...

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Ramsey glanced at the tactical display, scratching his chin.

That he had ordered to follow the Doranian convoy had been a good idea. Right now _USS Nautilus_ was keeping station well outside the outer sensory perimeter of the large station in deep space just outside the Corian Expanse, well between Narn and Doranian space.

Actually he had been rather surprised by the existence of the station. He had actually doubted that the Doranians would have had an idea like that.

'Instead, he had found this.

Surrounded by about one or two squadrons worth of their cruisers, the large station seemed to be a forward fleetbase of some kind.

In the last few days they had noted damaged ships closing in on the station and entering repair slips. Several additional convoys had supplied the station before other convoys had left for Narn space.

Right now _Nautilus_ was keeping watch over the large station, her passive sensors keeping note of every ships movement, the database with specific energy profiles growing with every single ship stopping by at the station.

Of course they were also preparing for their part of 'Operation Midway'.

"Captain," Jones piped up," We got a jump point forming a hundred miles off to port."

Ramsey raised an eyebrow and raised his arm to glance at his watch.

"They are early," he noted with a slowly developing smirk.

The display changed, showing a small Monsoon and a much larger Ferron Hyperion dropping out of the large funnel like fissure in space time.

"Ships identified as _Berlin_ and _Reyan_."

Ramsey raised an eyebrow as he spied a large lump hanging from the belly of the Ferron Hyperion Reyan.

"Is that an asteroid?" he wondered.

"Sir, incoming transmission from _Berlin_, via laser com."

Ramsey nodded. Laser com was the best to use in such a situation. They were only a few light hours away from the large Doranian station and radio was going to be detected by the Doranians.

"Put it through."

The display didn't change as the speakers crackled to life.

"This is _Berlin_, commanding officer Leutnant Thorsten Meiler speaking," a heavily German accented voice came through.

"This is _Nautilus_, Captain Ramsey," he answered." I see you got a few presents for the Doranians."

"Yep," Meiler noted and Ramsey could hear him smirk." We got a few Ghostraider Pods with KKVs, some mines and Troja for you."

Ramsey raised his eyebrow.

"Troja?" he wondered.

"The asteroid," Meiler said and chuckled." As far as I know some people in Chicago came up with it. Troja got some missile pods and receivers installed into it."

Ramsey scratched his chin, thinking for a few moments. Why put Pods into an asteroid?

Than he smirked as it came to him. They were in some sort of interstellar asteroid field and they had seen a few asteroids passing close to the station without the Doranians really caring. Obviously someone had thought about that.

"Its a last minute addition," Meiler added." I'm told that its going to cruise over to the Doranians and pop its missiles once its closest to the station."

Ramsey grinned.

"Oh, I can imagine," he said with an evil grin." We're able to get it very close to the station..."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Dodge grinned a little as _Stingray_ left slipstream and he glanced at the distant yellow sun of the system.

"Mu Arae," he said after a while." Three confirmed planets. Anything about them? Emily?"

Dodge's once time diving office turned Executive Officer turned to a small console next to her seat as Dodge stood behind his own.

"Its four planets, sir," Emily noted dryly, causing Lovachelli to chuckle slightly.

Dodge rolled his eyes .

"Yeah, laugh it up... Anything about these... four planets?"

"Well, three Gas giants, two of them, b and d inside the so called green zone and a single terrestrial planet c."

Dodge scratched his chin.

"Let me guess," he said," The pirates hide on the terrestrial one?"

Emily turned slightly and grinned.

"That one has a year of just nine days," she noted, causing Dodge to blink a few times.

"Okay... Where than?"

Emily chuckled and turned back to her console.

"One of the moons of Planet b."

Now it was Dodge's turn to chuckle.

"Okay, let the Pirates of Planet b officially be called btards... Any chance that the moon is like Endor?"

"Lets hope not..."


	61. Chapter 61

Back Home – The Dual War

by Warringer

Chapter 60

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Leutnant Bauer breathed in deep as he pulled his plane upwards, evading the fire of plasma bolts from the pirate shuttle, just before a Sidewinder from an American F-16 hit it and caused it to be destroyed in a fireball of plasma, showering the surrounding city of Dortmind with debris, adding to the carnage that the ships weapons were creating on the ground.

"Stop attacking," an unknown voice ordered with a firm voice in Japanese a language most of the armed forces on Earth had learned via rapid schooling, accompanied with static," Or we will use heavier weapons on your city."

The voice disappeared and with it the static. Just moments later one of the heavy turrets of the Pirate ship fired, hitting the base of the Florian Tower, a large radio tower in the center of the Westfahlenpark and one of the main sights of Dortmund.

Bauers head turned to see how the large tower slowly began to list to the side, only to collapse into a shower of concrete debris.

He began to grit his teeth as he glared towards the pirate ship, followed by a glance at the tactical overlay of the new holographic HUD of his Tornado.

"New plan," he said, his radio tuned in on the tactical network the Luftwaffe fighters shared with the US Air Force in this operation. "Lets take out the weapon turrets."

"And how?" he heard Americans, 'Spectre' ask. "You got any heavy weapons?"

Bauer breathed in and pulled his fighter around and speed towards the pirate ships hull.

"Our Tornados are armed with dual PPCs," Walldorf noted and Bauer could see him pull up to his on his right side. "Maybe they're all we need."

"Great," one of the Americans said. "Going Freespace on them..."

"What your overpriced planes don't have them?" Walldorf asked and rubbed some salt into the open wound.

"Shut up..."

"Just cover our asses," Bauer said and breathed in deep as he checked his weapons status.

He had still a single IRIS-T on his racks and if he remembered correctly those were infrared guided.

"Walldorf? Got any IRIS left?"

With that question he rolled his finger over the small trackball in his flight stick, trying to get a target lock on one of the turrets.

"Two, why?"

Bauer grinned as he got his lock.

"Those turrets present nice hot targets," he said." Fox Two."

He pulled his fighter up again as the IRIS left its launch rack and the counter went down to zero. Only a few moments later the missile reached its intended target, the heavy shrapnel warhead slamming into the turret. As the engine had not yet burned out, the missile was pushed forward and moments later the warhead detonated, ripping open the only not fully protected area where the turret connected to the hull.

Sharp shrapnel burrowed themselves into the seam, some penetrating it and ripping into the control systems of the turret, locking it into place and forcing it to cease firing.

"One turret down," Walldorf noted with a grin and chuckled. "Fox Two."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Bosorevski grinned, after he had directed his small remote turret up noticing a small speck of light at the edge of the video image in front of him.

"Looks like our boys just blew up one of the turrets," he noted with a grin.

Hinrich, the gunner of the PzKw XI 'Tiger' prototype, chuckled as he directed the turret of large tank to point into the general direction of the massive warship.

"You think I should try to take a potshot?" he wondered out loud.

"I would try," Michaelis, the driver, noted with a laugh." We can't let the flyboys get all the glory."

"Come on," Bosorevski noted with a mock frown and turned his small commander turret back into the direction they were going. "We already squashed a good amount of bad guys."

The large tank buckled a little as it pushed a few cars away from the street as it moved down the B54 towards the Westfahlenpark and the Westfahlen Stadion.

"I wonder if we can get a few squished pirates painted on the turret," Hinrich asked and pulled the main rail gun and the coaxial auto cannon towards the underbelly of the large ship, getting two separate target locks for both weapons. "Lets try full auto."

A few finger strokes on the touch screen in front of him and he had linked the same trigger to both guns, followed by a gentle squeeze of said trigger.

With a muffled staccato, sounding like someone slamming a larger amount of car doors shut, both guns awoke to life. The 88mm main Railgun spat out ten projectiles in the ten seconds the trigger was pressed, a mix of HEAT and tungsten APFSDS, while the 40mm auto cannon directed twenty three HEAT projectiles at the underbelly of the pirate ship.

Hinrich grinned as he saw the telltale detonations of a successful targeting on his displays and a pair of gaping holes in the ships hull as the smoke of the detonations cleared, followed by a pair of sowhat larger detonations as severed plasma lines lost containment.

"Not only are we the first MBT crew to take down an alien fighter," he noted with a huge grin," but also the first MBT crew to successfully take on a warship."

Only moment later several plasma bolts impacted on the street close to the tank.

"Provided that we make it through this..." Bosorevski said with a frown.

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Dubinin frowned as he gripped one of the handrails in the Main Control Room of the Earth Defense Center, glaring at two holograms that showed the pair of pirate ships that had managed to make it to Earth, taken by the powerful optics of a pair of AWACS Monsoons in stationary orbit.

At this moment they were the biggest problem. Especially for him, as he was currently the Commander in charge of Earth Defense, something that changed every two weeks to allow all nations of GDI to get their men to work at EDC for a time.

His eyes narrowed as he saw a number of small detonations on the surface of the ship hovering over Dortmund.

"What is happening in Dortmund," he asked out loud.

"Looks like the Tornados are firing at the weapons of the pirate ship," Seiler, who had become something of the soul of the EDC, noted from his console. "I'm also getting reports about a tank that takes on the Pirates on the ground."

Dubinin blinked and didn't notice that Seina Yamada walked up to him, the cabbit Fuku sitting on his head.

A third display appeared, showing a light gray painted tank that looked different to those Dubinin knew. For one it was rapidly moving down a nearly empty street, now and than crashing right through a car, its guns directed upwards, firing now and than, while a trio of smaller PPC took care of shuttles and pirate troopers.

"I didn't know Earth had such a tank," Seina said out loud.

Back in school he and never really followed the military, but he knew that Earth tanks didn't have energy weapons like the side and turret mounted PPCs.

Dubinin flinched lightly, only than noticing the Earth born GP officer and commander of _Kamidake II_.

"A German panzer," Seiler noted absendmindedly." The Prototype of the new German Tiger Heavy Main Battle Tank. They were stranded in Dortmund because of a problem with their train engine on the way to the testing ground for life fire trials."

Dubinin shook his head. Again the Germans were building better tanks than anyone else in the world. But as long as they were not used to invade Mother Russia...

Than he snorted. It looked like the Abrams had to give away the trophy of being the best tank on Earth.

"I'm pretty sure other races have better tanks," he said out loud and glanced over to Seina.

"I don't remember seeing one," Seina said, blinking once.

Dubinin shrugged.

"Any change in the pirate ships patterns?"

"Yes," Seiler answered." It seems they are loosing their bombardment weapons on the dorsal side and begin to roll over to direct their other weapons at the city."

Dubinin frowned and gripped the wooden handrail harder as if he wanted to break it. But the wood of a Solar Dyson Tree was harder than any Earth wood.

"We need to get them away from Dortmund and Jerusalem," he said." Are any Devastators in orbit above the cities?"

"Two close to Jerusalem, one Thai and one New Zealand, and a Malaysian close to Dortmund. We also have the Monsoons over Geneva."

Dubinin nodded and licked his lips.

"Order them to enter the atmosphere and move to their targets. Also order two of the Monsoons to Jerusalem and the remaining to Dortmund. I want them to take out the pirates weapons from a distance ASAP and than tow the ships back into orbit. And tell the guys of the Israeli Air Force to begin attacking the weapons that are bombarding Jerusalem."

He stopped for a moment and narrowed his eyes.

"Why aren't the pirates activating their shields?"

"Cheap pirated hardware," Seina said, causing some of the operators in the room to groan at the unintended pun." We had that a few times. When the shield generators aren't correctly build or knocked out of alignment they don't work in an atmosphere. As far as I know that is only a problem of pirates."

Dubinin nodded.

"So they won't suddenly turn on their shields?"

"Probably not."

They were silent for a few moments as they watched how their orders were relayed and ow the Israeli Thunderbolts began to attack the pirate ship over Jerusalem.

"Admiral Dubinin," Ensign Walter O'Reilly, Royal Australian Navy, one of the Communication operators called out. "I got a communication attempt of the pirates."

Dubinin's head turned to the man, who most likely had to hear many comments about his name.

"What are they saying?"

O'Reilly breathed in deep.

"They demand that we cease attacking them and let them get off world or they destroy the cities."

Dubinin shook his head.

"Not likely," he growled out, followed by a Russian profanity." Do not respond to that. I want the fighters to take out the heavy weapons ASAP."

Seina winced lightly, causing Dubinin to turn around and glare at him.

"You wanted something?"

"Well..." Seina began, taking a step back.

Facing Dubinin at this moment seemed like facing an angry bear. Fuku used the moment to hop off Seina's head and hide behind his legs.

"I just heard that you have the position of the pirates base and wanted..."

Dubinin cut him off.

"We don't need the help of the Galaxy Police," he said and breathed in deep to calm himself down. "You weren't there to help when the Doranians attacked us. Why should you help us now? We will deal with this on our own."

Than Dubinin grinned.

"In fact we have the only aliens willing to help with the First Doranians Invasion going after the pirates."

For a moment Seina drew a blank, but than knew exactly who Dubinin was taking about.

"Ryoko," he said and swallowed.

"The very same."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Do a barrel roll!" someone screamed on top his his lungs into the sky.

Goldmann turned to look who that had been, only to see a number of grinning or laughing US Marines. High above them, IAF Thunderbolts began to pound away on the pirate ship hovering over Jerusalem, their plasma gatlings.

"Stop that," he than heard the voice of Lieutenant Marvin Williams, the commander of the Marines that had found Goldmann. "We have other problems."

Goldmann breathed in deep as he slowly reached for a new magazine for his M-4. He was glad that the Marines had given him some new ones.

Deep whooshing noises made his flinch. He had heard them many times today and they had never been very good. The barricade he was leaning into, a low wall, shuddered as plasma bolts from pirate weapons, shaking dust over him and the Marines leaning at it left and right of him.

Goldman flinched again as one of the Marines hadn't been able to duck fast enough. He pressed his eyes shut as he saw that the Marine was missing a part of his left face.

"Fire in the hole!" someone yelled and Goldmann could see a pair of grenades sailing over the barricade.

A pair of explosions followed and Goldmann jumped up, turned towards the road where the explosions had just happened. For a moment he simply pressed his finger down on the trigger, spraying the road with bullets, stopping only as he heard the SAW of the Marines open fire.

The dust and smoke of the two hand grenades cleared lightly and he could see four of the pirates down the road, one was lying on the ground, his legs separate from his body, the other three armored and dazed.

He breathed in deep and tried to aim for the faceplate of the armor and pressed the trigger again. Next to him several more Marines did the same.

"The Spacers are sending ships to deal with the pirates," he than heard someone else yell." They're gonna take it down."

"And we will take the rest."


End file.
